


A Cosmonautical History

by orphan_account



Series: Space stuff [3]
Category: Space Exploration RPF
Genre: Badly translated from the Russian, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2020-06-28 08:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 67
Words: 99,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19808770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: On July 9, the United States fired at a height of 399 km above the Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean a test explosion of a 1.4 Mt thermonuclear ammunition. The unexpected result of the test was the appearance of a high-intensity artificial radiation belt.Shortly thereafter, in the first days of August, American experts raised a fuss: the response of the Soviet cosmic explosion, which they expected after the Declaration of July 22 “about the forced testing of the latest Soviet nuclear weapons”, could be dangerous. for Walter Schirra’s flight! It should be noted that the Soviet side did not produce cosmic explosions of such power at all, andIt went, - she had much more cause for concern: there were only a few days left before the pair flight of Andriyan Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich.On August 11, on the day of the launch of Vostok-3, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, G. M. Pushkin, presented the person in charge of US affairs in the USSR, J. McSui, with the appeal of the Government of the USSR. It called on Americans to “refrain from conducting nuclear explosions that could endanger the safety of the Soviet cosmonaut”. On the same day, the US Department of State declared that the USA “does not schedule any actions that would in any way interfere with the Soviet cosmonaut”.In the meantime, the Americans estimated that, although the new radiation belt is reaching the greatest intensity.at an altitude of 650 km or more, for his six turns, Walter Schirra can receive a dose of skin irradiation up to 8 roentgens; and if it were not for the two protective shells — the spacesuit and the cabin walls — then this value would have reached 500 rents! Although 8 roentgens were within the tolerance, three days after the publication of this forecast, the launch was postponed until September 28 — experts hoped that by that time the radiation level would be lower.And everything repeated “exactly the opposite”: On October 2, the same scientist presented a note of the State Department to the member of the collegium of the USSR Foreign Ministry, M.N. Smirnovsky, for which he received the answer: “The Soviet Union will not take, of course, any actions that could to create obstacles to the flight of the American cosmonaut. ”





	1. Chapter 1

It is a decent age to have your story.  
Let's think: how do you spell this story? In its initial “chapter,” astronautics was divided into secret and unclassified. The non-secret part is much smaller than the one that was covered with a veil of secrecy, but how complete it was! Everyone, even the children, knew the dates of space flights, the names and biographies of the first cosmonauts, and discussed with interest the technical and everyday details of life in the unknown. Then the dates began to be forgotten, the names followed. The scientific and technical details went to the specialists there. Today, few will call the names of astronauts working in orbit.  
The story "shrank", became more schematic ... and lost the "soul" that human passions made up, which were created during the design and creation of space technology, during the preparation and implementation of space flights. Meanwhile, all this has remained in life, and the present time gives us examples of no less dramatic turns and amazing events in a manned spacecraft. But only two-digit numbers of expeditions and the duration of their stay in space are recorded in history.  
A special factor — the “nationalization” of cosmic history — is a serious complication after a long illness caused by the cold war. Several years ago I had the opportunity to participate in a conference held in Washington (DC, USA). The author of one fundamental report devoted to the history of cosmonautics, managed to mention for the first time Soviet cosmonauts, only telling about the ApolloSouz project (1975). It was felt that he was never able to find a form of presentation that could give an idea of a joint Soviet-American flight without the participation of Soviet specialists, cosmonauts and a ship. But in the end, if someone prefers a distorted view of reality, then he himself pays for the consequences. Most, on the contrary, want to know the real picture.  
The trouble is that anyway, the real picture, perhaps for simplicity, is artificially divided into history of events in astronautics (a list of dates) and the biography of some designers and cosmonauts. The history of space technology is generally studied in few places. As a result, there are a number of not all overlapping versions of the history of cosmonautics, which in fact are just some or other projections of a multidimensional and multicolored phenomenon that has become one of the turning points of human history.  
We, perhaps somewhat self-confidently, took upon ourselves the task of at least partially restoring the integrity of the history of manned cosmonautics, combining dates, events, people, countries, equipment, human collisions and experiences under one cover, all the more so less. But at the same time, we understood the fundamental impossibility of making the story complete and limited ourselves in terms of questions, depth of description, and, naturally, in terms of volume and time. For example, we did not write the history of cosmodromes, which, of course, is an essential part of the history of cosmonautics. Or - they refused to ask the idea “at the last hour” to include in the book the descriptions  
jump to the outer space boundaries of the first private ship SpaceShipOne. Of course, the voids could be different, but they are fundamentally inevitable (and necessary), like holes in Swiss cheese.  
What is the essence of such incompleteness? In the simplest case, history is thought of as a chronological sequence of events (points on the “time axis”). But even rough linear alignment faces a number of serious difficulties: any new historical character, idea, or scientific and technical breakthrough, if you think about it, bring with them explanations of their background, and returning back becomes necessary. Thus, the simplest sequence turns into a more sophisticated chronological structure.  
But the situation is even more complicated. Each described event arises either as the starting point of the corresponding episode of the historical narration, or as the point of intersection of several historical episodes. And the recorded history is no longer a straight line (“axis”), but a surface, a hyperplane on which we place points (events), straight lines (fragments of history) or special aggregates of something of a higher dimension. Each historical fragment is orientated to us relative to the others. To study a fragment of history in its continuity, it is necessary to place it in a certain “space”, to consider it as a certain path in time. If the areas of this “space” are historical in relation to the story that we are trying to describe, or to someone's biographies, then they seek to reorganize the space of historical description, eliminating some voids, but revealing others.  
Therefore, the authors of the work offered to the reader accept reproaches for its incompleteness, but they answer in the sense that the book, we fill this or that lacuna, would be completely different, yes, probably, the authors too.  
Astronautics marks a civilizational arm,


	2. What is the use of balloons and spacecraft?

time is far faster than their importance for understanding  
the story itself. Lost parts will grow into white spots. Today, at the very beginning of the new century and millennium, we notice: how many white spots in the history of man-made systems created in the twentieth century! The most striking achievements in the twentieth century, humanity has achieved in space technology and space exploration. An enormous creative work of scientists and industry organizers, primarily the USSR and the USA, was invested in the creation of space systems.  
Now, unfortunately, interest in astronautics is falling both among people and among states that were formerly leaders in this field. This means that important fragments of human history will be forgotten inevitably. Leaving aside or distorting the history of science and technology is fraught with failures in the culture of mankind and, quite possibly, choosing a suboptimal way for the development of civilization.  
When people talk about manned astronautics, first of all they remember astronauts and astronauts. This is correct, but one should not forget that a cosmonaut is only a link in a chain of steps leading into the Universe. And in this chain there are thoughts and deeds of scientists, engineers, workers, politicians, production managers. How they came together in solving a problem of enormous complexity, how manned cosmonautics began and developed - this is the theme of the book “World Manned Cosmonautics. Story. Equipment. People".  
During World War II, science in all the warring countries was militarized. The development of new weapons required the participation of prominent scientists and scientific and technical teams in terms of secrecy and regardless of the results already obtained by others. Then this division of technical thought maintained the cold war situation. Today we are experiencing a significant period when technical knowledge and know-how in the field of astronautics are “sewn together”. Thus, space research acquires new quality and new potential. And the book the reader holds is one of the hallmarks of this great cosmic unification of humanity.


	3. Project Vostok:road to start

The world's first manned spacecraft was developed at the OKB􏰀1 Special Design Bureau (now Rocket and Space Corporation “Energy”) under the supervision of Chief Designer Sergey Pavlovich Korolev and with the full support of the Soviet state headed by Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev .  
Work on the design of a manned spacecraft began in the 9th department of the OKB-1 under the leadership of Mikhail Klavyevich Tikhonravov in early 1957, even before the launch of the First Satellite, and on February 15, 1958 S. Korolev set a specific task: development of a piloted orbital ship. The main designer was Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov, who later became a pilot cosmonaut and deputy general designer.  
The ship was designed for launching by a carrier on the basis of an intercontinental R-7 rocket with an additional 3rd stage. The main problems were associated with the return of the spacecraft to Earth: heating of the descent module (SA) and overload during braking.  
Even at the end of 1957, studies showed that the optimal form of SA is a blunt cone (with a rounded nose and a spherical bottom) with a diameter of about 2 m. Due to the possibility of lightly planning, a conical SA would allow reducing congestion during descent to 5–6 g (instead of 10–12 g), get a higher accuracy when landing. The pilot's rescue was foreseen by means of ejection and autonomous descent by parachute, and the SA itself did not escape. Before the conceptual design, this idea is not reached.  
As a result of research and development, design department No9 issued a report titled “Preliminary Study Materials on the Creation of a Satellite of the Earth with a Man on Board (Object OD2)”. The report indicated that using a three-stage rocket into the satellite orbit, it is possible to launch a ship weighing 4.5–5.5 tons (depending on the 3rd stage) with a man and the equipment necessary for his flight. With the ballistic descent of the spherical SA, the overloads do not exceed 8–9 g. In April 1958, it became known that an overload of 10 g was quite tolerable for a pilot. Therefore, they did not agree with the aerodynamic calculations of the conical SA, but agreed to the sphere already studied with a descent along a ballistic trajectory. For the sphere at that time, all dynamic characteristics were known.

In June 1958, S.P. Korolyov approved the preliminary results; on August 15, they were recorded in the report on the ОД􏰀2 object and approved by the Chief Designer on September 15. And the very next day, S.P.Korolyov sent proposals for the creation of a manned spacecraft and unmanned satellite of the reconnaissance to the head of the State Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers on defense technology, K.N. Rudnev, and the customer, Marshal M.I.Nedelin.  
Without waiting for the official approval of the project, OKB-1 immediately began to develop design documentation and issued technical tasks to related organizations. In the course of the design, the layout of the ship was significantly changed, and the instrument compartment (SW) with the brake propulsion system was now located below the descent vehicle. Already in the spring of 1959 drawings went into production.  
on the ship's hull, and by the fall the working documentation was basically ready.  
The work on the creation of the first satellite in the world for human flight was officially legitimized by a completely secret resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of May 22, 1959 No569􏰀 264 on the topic “East”. It was delivered  
on the task of developing an experimental version of the spacecraft, which was supposed to create the prerequisites for the development of the reconnaissance satellite, “as well as the satellite intended for human flight”. These seven words gave life to “Vostok”, which started on April 12, 1961. The separate task — to carry out the first manned flights in outer space — was assigned only in government decree No 1386-618 dated December 10, 1959.  
Thus, the program included the creation of not only a manned spacecraft Vostok-3 (factory index 3K), but also a similar in assembly, but different in equipment for the photo reconnaissance satellite Vostok-2 (object 2K , later "Zenith" 2), as well as the simplified ship "Vostok-1" (1K) for testing systems.  
In total, 123 organizations participated in the creation of the ship. The actual leadership of the work was carried out by the Council of Chief Designers headed by S.P. Korolev (general organization, ship, rocket carrier). The Council included: V.P. Glushko (engines of the 1st and 2nd stages of the LV), M.S. Ryazansky (radio control systems, surveillance and communications), N.A. Pilyugin (the control system PH, instruments of ship control system), V.P. Barmin (launch company  
plex), V.I. Kuznetsov (gyroscopes of the control systems of the launch vehicle and the ship), A.F. Bohomol (radio telemetry systems), A.M.Isaev (brake propulsion system), S.A. Kosberg (engine 3 Steps of the PH), S.M. Alekseev (spacesuit, ejection seat), V.I. Yazdovskiy (head of medical and biological training of astronauts).  
April 26, 1960 S.P. Korolyov approved the conceptual design of “Vostok-1”, but - a sign of the times! - simultaneously with its development, production was proceeding, the simplified ship already existed in the “iron” and was almost ready for flight test design (LCI).


	4. Project Vostok:launches unmanned ships series 1K

Government Decree No 587–238 of June 4, 1960, “On the Plan for the Development of Outer Space in 1960 and the First Half of 1961,” established the terms for launching ships:  
May 1960 - two ships 1КP (simplest) without life support system (LSS) and thermal protection;  
until August 1960 - three 1K ships for testing the ship's systems and the expansive equipment;  
September – December - two 3K ships for testing LSS.  
Apparently, for a very long time, this decree walked along the ministerial corridors, since as early as May 15, 1960, at 03:00:06 Moscow time on maternity time (UHF) from the 1st launcher of the 1st site of the Zarya * test site * (Tyuratam , Baikonur) was launched RN 8K72K "Vostok", which put into orbit of the first Soviet spacecraft-satellite weighing 4540 kg. The parameters of its orbit were as follows: apogee — 369 km, perigee — 312 km, inclination — 65 °, and an inversion period — 91.2 min. The 1KP ship was not equipped with a life support system, a landing system and was not covered with thermal protection. Inside there was a load that imitates the weight of a person.  
Four days later, Tass reported:  
“In accordance with the program, on May 19, at 02:52 UHF, in order to carry out the descent of the ship ..., a command was issued to activate the brake propulsion system and separate the sealed cabin. The braking motor system worked, and the intended stabilization of the ship was carried out during operation ... However, as a result of a malfunction that occurred in one of the orientation system devices ... the direction of the braking impulse deviated from the calculated ... " .

The culprit was the infrared vertical sensor in the ship's control system, the failure of which could not be recognized in time. Instead of a braking impulse, we obtained an accelerating one: the first spacecraft passed into an elliptical orbit with a height from 307 to 690 km, where the separation of the compartments took place. It was said that S.P.Korolyov was not very upset because of the failure and even there was a positive moment in it: all the same, the first maneuver in orbit! The SA was inhibited and burned in the dense layers of the atmosphere only on October 15, 1965.  
The first flight of the simplest ship 1KP was considered sufficiently successful not to launch - as envisaged by the June 4 decree - the second such device.  
On July 28, 1960, at 12:31, UHF attempted to launch a second spacecraft-satellite. This was already a fully equipped experimental ship 1K No1: its SA was equipped with a landing system and covered with thermal protection. In the ejection container, located instead of the cosmonaut's chair, were located Fox and Chaika's dogs.  
Due to the explosion of the combustion chamber of the engine of unit G (one of the “sides” of the rocket), the rocket package collapsed as a result of high-frequency oscillations in the 38th second of the flight. The SA fell on the territory of the measuring point No1 - the SA rescue system just before the start and at the initial stage of the flight was not yet worked out. The dogs Lisichka and Chaika died. No announcement of this launch was published until 1988.  
On August 19, 1960, at 11:44:07 UHF, the Second Spacecraft-Satellite (1K No2) was successfully launched. A ship weighing 4,600 kg went into orbit with the following parameters: height — 306x339 km, orbital period — 90.7 minutes, inclination — 64 ° 57 '. On board, in the ejection installation, the dogs Belka and Strelka were in a special container.  
Here are the parameters of the first four-legged astronauts: Squirrel - female, light weight, short-haired, weight - 4.5 kg, height - 30 cm, length - 47 cm. Arrow - light color suit with dark spots, weight – 5.5 kg, height – 32cm, length – 50cm.  
In flight, their arterial pressure, electrocardiogram, cardiac sounds, respiration rate, body temperature, and motor activity were recorded.  
In a separate airtight container located in the same ejection installation, there were two white rats and 12 white and black mice, as well as insects, plants and fungi. Outside the ejection container, another 28 mice and two white rats were placed. In addition, seeds of various varieties of corn, wheat, and peas were placed in the SA to check the impact of space flight on their yield. To observe the animals on board the ship, the Seliger radio-television system (NII-380, supervisor - I.A. Rosselevich) was installed with two television cameras that shot the dogs from the front and in profile. The image was also recorded on film. Thanks to this shooting, as well as the interpretation of medical parameters, it turned out that on the 4th – 6th turns, Belka behaved restlessly, tried to free herself from the seat belts, and barked. She had vomited. It is this fact that influenced the choice of the duration of the first flight of a person - 1 turn.  
The medical and biological experiments carried out on the spacecraft satellites made it possible to learn about the peculiarities of the life activity of living organisms in weightlessness, about the effects of radiation on them.  
In the framework of space research, SA installed heavy blocks with plates coated with photo-emulsion to register cosmic rays with the possibility of their manifestation on board. In addition, instruments were installed for studying the Sun in the x-ray and ultraviolet radiation spectrum.  
A few hours after the launch, it turned out that the infrared sensor had failed again on the ship, as at 1KP. S.P. Korolev gave the command to use a backup solar system for preplant orientation. On August 20 at 10:32 am UHF, on the 18th orbit, a descent cycle was started by a command from the earth on a ship. At 10:38, the TDU was turned on, the ship descended from orbit, and its SA successfully landed in a given region, in the Orsk – Kuskanay – Amangeldy triangle, just 10 km from the reference point. TASS reported: “The spacecraft and the capsule separated from it, with experimental animals, landed safely ... The Belka and Strelka dogs feel good after the flight and landing.”

For the first time in the history of mankind, living beings, having completed a space flight, returned safely to Earth.  
In parallel with the flight tests of 1K ships in the OKB􏰀1, work was under way on a piloted 3K ship. In August, the designers of K.P. Feoktistov found an opportunity to speed up its creation by abandoning some of the systems envisaged by the project. It was decided not to install the SA descent control system, to abandon the development of a catapulted sealed capsule for rescuing an astronaut at altitudes up to 90 km, to simplify the cosmonaut console, etc. The simplified “East” project for the human flight received the letter “A” and became indexed 3KA.  
On September 10, D. F. Ustinov, R. Ya. Malinovsky, K. N. Rudnev, M. V. Keldysh, S. P. Korolev and others sent to the CPSU Central Committee a memo in which it was proposed to speed up work on the first manned space flight and 1–2 launches of the Vostok-1 spacecraft in October – November 1960; Two launches of Vostok-3A in November – December and the manned orbital flight in December 1960. It was planned to complete the training of pilots-astronauts (just like that!) by December 1, 1960.  
On October 11, 1960, the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No 1110–462 issued a decree that “prepared and launched the Vostok spacecraft (3KA) with a person aboard in December 1960 and ordered this is a task of special importance. " The preparation of the first manned space flight reached the home straight.

At that time, the main forces of the OKB-1 were diverted from the manned program and thrown to the launch of the first interplanetary stations to Mars. The mutual position of the Earth and Mars in orbits occurs approximately one and a half years later, and the favorable launch time was in September – October. It was impossible to postpone the launch of "interplanets". Two launches took place on October 10 and 14, but both were unsuccessful: summed up the third stage of the 8K78 missile, later called the Molniya.  
And on October 24, at the 41st site of Baikonur, a catastrophe occurred during the pre-launch preparation of ICBM R􏰀16 (8K64) designed by MK Yangel, which took the lives of 92 testers and industry workers. Killed and an active supporter of manned spaceflight - Chief Marshal of Artillery, Commander of the Strategic Missile Forces M.I. Nedelin. Then - goodbyes, supporters ... Only in the beginning of December the OKB-1 finally continued the tests of spacecraft-satellites. Chair  
K.N.Rudnev was appointed as the telecom of the State Commission instead of I.N.  
On December 1, 1960, at 10:30:04 UHF, the Third Space Shuttle Satellite (1K No5) was launched with dogs Bee and Mushka on board. He entered orbit with an altitude of 187.3х265 km and a slope of 65 °; the mass of the ship was 4563 kg. In addition to dogs, as in the previous flight, other experimental animals were aboard.  
During the daily flight, the ship behaved normally, but during the operation of the TDU, due to a failure in the stabilization system, the braking impulse was insufficient and the descent trajectory was very flat. This threatened to land outside the territory of the USSR, and in such a case, on board the 1K ship — as on the 2K photodynamic satellite — there was an automatic object detonation system (APO). And it just passed the test “perfectly well”: not registering the entrance to the atmosphere at the estimated time by means of the overload sensor, it undermined the descent vehicle. Dogs Bee and Mushka are thought to have died.  
The launch of the last spacecraft of the satellite of the 1K series (No6) took place on December 22, 1960 at 10:45:19 UHF. "Passengers" were Comet and Joke dogs (according to other sources, Pearl and Zhulka), as well as mice, rats and other  
small animals The ship did not go into orbit because of the destruction of the 3rd stage gas generator at 425th second of the flight and the engine emergency shutdown at 432th. The ship made a suborbital flight with a maximum ascent of 214 km, and the SA with dogs successfully landed in the Krasnoyarsk Territory 60 km from Tura. The State Commission dispatched a search team led by an OKB􏰀1 officer Arvid Vladimirovich Pallo to evacuate CA and animals. On December 24, the descent vehicle was detected by the Line-2 plane, but the rescuers managed to reach it only on the 4th day - December 26th. The dogs were lucky: the ejection system did not work, and the cosmonaut's chair remained in the ship. Otherwise, at 40 ° C, they would inevitably freeze. This flight formed the basis of the story “The Legend of the Aliens” by V.S. Gucharev.

The 3KA ships for human flight, taking into account the time taken to eliminate remarks following the results of the 1K flights, could not be ready before February 1961. In addition, the impact forces of the OKB-1 again had to be diverted to launch interplanetary stations in January – February 1961, the launches took place on February 4 and 12, the second of which was successful, and the station went to Beren. After that, it was necessary to hold test flights of two 3KA unmanned ships, and only if they were successful could a manned flight be carried out in March – April 1961. 


	5. Technical description of the Vostok

The Vostok-1 was intended for unpiloted testing of the onboard systems of the piloted 3K ship and the 2K photo-reconnaissance satellite.  
And if the presence of photographic equipment on board (developed by the KGB, K.V. Bulgakov, and Krasnogorsk Mechanical Plant, N.M.Egorov) was not reported, then the presence of scientific equipment was reported in detail.  
In the 1K ship, a catapulted container was installed, which was one of the variants of the container designed for  
future human flights. The container contained: a cabin for animals with a tray, automatic feeding, cesspool device, ventilation system, etc .; ejection and pyrotechnic facilities; radio transmitters for direction finding of the container, television cameras with a system of under-lighting and mirrors, blocks with nuclear photographic emulsions. The animal cabin was made of sheet metal.  
Ahead on the descent vehicle 1K, unlike in 3K, there were two half discs,an experimental solar battery 1000 mm in diameter, oriented to the sun using a special system, regardless of the position of the ship.  
The maximum overload during the descent of the SA was 10 g. The container was ejected with animals at an altitude of 7–8 km, and landing at a speed of 6–8 m / s. The SA landed at a speed of 10 m / s.  
All unmanned ships were equipped with an automatic detonation system (APO) (NII􏰀137, V.A. Kostrov).  
The lead designer of these ships was Oleg Genrikhovich Ivanovsky.

The ship “Vostok-3A” (factory designation - “object 3KA”) was intended for a manned flight in the orbit of the Earth of one cosmonaut.  
The ship consisted of two compartments: the descent vehicle (SA) and the instrument compartment (software) with the TDV-1 motor system.  
The 2.4 m airtight SA had an almost spherical shape. Outside, it was covered with heat insulation made of asbestos fabric, impregnated with bakelite resin, with a thickness of 40 to 110 mm. The SA had three manholes with a diameter of 1 m. One at the astronaut's feet was technological, the second over his head was for the astronaut to land in the SA and eject, and the third was the hatch of a parachute container. In the SA there were three portholes.  
During the entire flight, the astronaut was in the SC-1 rescue space suit connected to the onboard life support system (LSS). SC􏰀1 was able to maintain the cosmonaut’s stay in a depressurized cabin for 4 hours and during ejection at an altitude of 10 km. On the Vostok-6 spacecraft, cosmonaut VVTereshkova flew in a special women's spacesuit SC-2. The space suits SK􏰀1 and SK􏰀2 were designed and manufactured at the Machine-Building Plant No918 (now not the Scientific Production Enterprise Zvezda) under the direction of SM Alekseeva.  
The on-board LSS (OKB􏰀124, GI Voronin) maintained a normal atmosphere in the SA with a pressure of 755–775 mm Hg. In the SA there were stocks of water, food, and containers for waste collection.

The spacecraft “Vostok” was put into orbit of a three-stage rocket “Vostok” (8K72K), while the ship was under the head fairing (GO) 6.63 m long and with a maximum diameter of 2.58 m . In the case of an accident of a rocket launcher at the launch position, the astronaut contacted at a speed of 48 m / s from the SA.  
But at such a low altitude the parachute could not open, and therefore, in order to save the cosmonaut, the grid into which he had to fall was pulled over the venting channel. In the case of a crash of a launch vehicle, the astronaut had the opportunity to eject from the launch site together with the seat with the help of two powder engines, which were to lead him up and away from the launch vehicle to a safe distance. After that, the standard parachute landing system of the cosmonaut should have been triggered.  
During normal flight, all the ship's control was automatic, however, the astronaut had the opportunity to manually orient the ship and issue a braking impulse for landing. But at that time no one could predict the reaction of the human nervous system to the conditions of space flight. In order to deprive the “distraught” pilot of the opportunity to intervene in the work of automation, they decided to install a cryptographic lock. His code (number 125) was presented in a sealed envelope to Gagarin before the start. In the future, the code lock was abandoned.


	6. Project Vostok:first flight preparations

While the OKB􏰀1 was being developed, and ships were built at the No88 plant, the USSR Air Force (Air Force) carried out the selection and training of the first cosmonauts.  
In accordance with the Decisions of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 22-10 of January 5, 1959 and No. 569-264 of May 22, 1959, various aviation units were selected for training in space. flights. Starting on October 1959, a total of 30–40 people each arrived at the Central Military Scientific Research Aviation Hospital (TsNNIAG; Head of Medical Selection — NN Gurovsky) to undergo in-depth medical examinations.  
On March 7, 1960, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force No267, 12 pilots from various units were appointed students in military unit 26266, the future Cosmonaut Training Center. During March – April, seven more pilots were enrolled, and the order of the Chief of the Air Force No.839 of June 17 enrolled Anatoly Kartashov, who turned out to be the last in the first set.  
Thus, it was only on June 17, 1960 that the first detachment of astronauts was fully formed. Of course, the 12 candidates for kosmonavtov who arrived “in the first batch” did not sit idle. On March 14, the first theoretical sessions took place, and on April 13, the students went for parachute training in Engels.  
Due to the lack of a sufficient training base, it was impossible to train all the listeners at once, so it was decided to select six of them for priority training.  
Yevgeny Anatolyevich Karpov, head of the Center for the Training of Space-Movers (TsPK), selected six of the most promising candidates: captains Pavel Popovich and Andriyan Nikolayev, senior lieutenants Yuri Gagarin, German Titov, Valentin Varlamov and Anatoly Kartashov. More than a quarter of a century passed before the journalist Yaroslav Golovanov could name these names. No documentary information was preserved about the first six, and it is known about it only from the recollections of the astronauts of the first set.  
From the end of June 1960, the Six received priority during training and access to the Vostok ship simulators. The rest of the students prepared a less intensive program. The first of the leading six was A.Ya.Kartashov. He was the last to join the detachment, but immediately attracted the attention of the CPC leadership and was included in the leading group. Kartashov, trying to catch up with the rest, was training very intensively. In less than a month, he performed flights on weightlessness, a program of parachute jumps, sitting in a heat chamber, in a silencer for 10 days, and began training on a centrifuge. In violation of the established rules and methods, the training was held several times a day. As a result, on July 16, after one of the centrifuge trainings on the back of Anatoly, minor hemorrhages were discovered. He was removed from further training, and in the spring of the next year he was expelled from the detachment. And on July 24, he stopped training in the strike group of Valentin Varlamov. While swimming at the Bear Lakes not far from Krasnoyarsk, he suffered a trauma to the cervical vertebra and went to the hospital. Instead of those who retired, Grigoriy Nelyubov and Valery Bykovsky were included in the leading group.

In pursuance of the resolutions, on the same day, the order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force No 176 was issued on the formation of a group of six cosmonaut candidates to prepare for the first flight on the list submitted by the CPC leadership. From that day on, cosmonauts began to prepare for the flight.  
The leading six astronauts in the composition: captains Bykovsky, Nikolayev, Popovich, senior lieutenants Gagarin, Nelyubov and Titov - were confirmed by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force No.220 of December 27, 1960, despite the fact that 3KA were tested in the unmanned version was delayed and there was no clarity with the date of the first manned flight. Nevertheless, the group continued training.  
On January 6, 1961, the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force appointed a commission to take examinations at the first six students. It included representatives of the Air Force, OKB-1, the Letno-Research Institute named after M. Gromov (LII), Plant No918 (by spacesuit) and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Lieutenant-General N.P. Kamanin, Deputy Chief of the Air Force Combat Training in Space, Head of Cosmonauts Training, was appointed Chairman of the Commission.  
On January 14, 1961, the medical examination of Bykovsky, Povovich, Nikolaev, Gagarin, Nelyubov and Titov was completed. By decision of the Chief Medical Commission, all six were allowed to perform space flight.

January 17, 1961 in the branch of the LII “shock six”, students took exams in design, operation and management skills of the spacecraft “Vostok-3A”. The first cosmonaut qualification examinations in history were accepted by: Lieutenant General N.P. Kamanin, military physicians, Major General A.N.Babiychuk, Lieutenant General Yu.M. Volynkin, General Lieutenant V.Ya.Klokov,Colonels V.I. Yazdovsky and Ye.A.Karpov, Academician N.M. Sissakian (from the USSR Academy of Sciences), K.P. Feoktistov (from the OKB-1), S.M. Alekseev - Chief Designer of Plant No918, Honored Pilot M.L.Gallai. During the exam, each student from the cockpit of the 3KA mockup reported for 40–50 minutes on the equipment of the ship, on the astronaut's actions at various stages of the flight. In the course of the report, members of the commission asked questions. Special attention was paid to the skills of orientation of the ship before switching on the brake propulsion system. As a result, Nelyubov and Bykovsky received a rating of "4", the rest - "5".  
The next day, January 18, the CPC held an exam on the theoretical course of space flight. Each attendant pulled a ticket with three questions and answered after 20 minutes of preparation. Then followed a few additional questions. All six passed the exam in "excellent."  
As a result of a review of the overall astronauts' progress, personal files, characteristics, medical books in  
the protocol of the commission was written: “Examinees are prepared for the flight at the Vostok-3A spacecraft. The commission recommends the following sequence of use of astronauts in flights: Gagarin, Titov, Nelyubov, Nikolaev, Bykovsky, Popovich ”.  
Thus, the first six students completed their training and on 25 January 1961. By order of the Air Force Commander No21, all six were appointed to the posts of cosmonauts in the permanent staff of the CPC. They were awarded the qualification "Astronaut Air Force". The main candidates for the first space flight were also determined.

From this time on, the six began intensive preparations for flight according to a single-stage program. On February 20, they began their studies at plant No918 (now NPP Zvezda) to study the suits, armchair, and worn emergency reserve (NAZ). At the same time, individual fitting of spacesuits began. True, contrary to the plans, they managed to make not six, but only three spacesuits - for Gagarin, Titov and Nelyubov (according to with the recommendation of the commission after taking astronaut examinations).  
On the same day, at a meeting with the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force KA Vershinin in the OKB􏰀1, S.P. Korolev announced that the launch of the first Vostok-3A was postponed from February 27 to February 28 or even later. For deficiencies in the gas analyzer, antenna feeder device and NAL.  
On February 22, the State Commission, chaired by K.N. Rudneva, decided to launch the first Vostok-3A with deficiencies in early March, and the second only after completing the tests of the complete set of equipment in order to speed up the development. Before the second launch, it was necessary to perform several ejection seats from the top, one ejection seat with a dummy from the SA, several ejection testers from the aircraft, check the ejection system at the start, finish the sea tests of the spacesuit and NAL, carry out 13􏰀 daily tests of new life-saving dryers. The launch of the first ship 3KA could take place on March 2–3, the second - on March 20–25,launch with a man - at the end of March - early April. This was what NPKamanin set up the first six astronauts.  
The design engineers of the OKB-1, KP Feoktistov and OG Makarov, together with the first group of cosmonauts, compiled the Instructions to the Cosmonaut. N.P.Kamanin, S.P.Korolyov, V.I. Yazdovsky, M.L.Gallay, S.M. Alekseev edited it on March 2, already on the training ground before starting 3KA No1. The instruction was a guide to the actions of the spacecraft at all stages of the flight. Korolev insisted on reducing the actions of the spacecraft, since the ship's equipment should have worked fully automatically. After a lengthy discussion, the original version was adopted and approved by Korolev and Kamanin with minor corrections. At the same meeting, due to disruptions in the timing of the preparation, it was decided to postpone the launch of Vostok-2A to March 9.


	7. Project Vostok:flight four of the satellite ship

On March 9, 1961 at 09:29:00 UHF, the carrier Vostok launched and launched the Fourth spacecraft satellite (3KA No1). The parameters of the orbit were: height above the Earth's surface - 183.5 x 248.8 km, inclination - 64 ° 56 ’, orbital period - 88.6 min. The flight program accurately simulated a single-turn human flight.  
It was the heaviest unmanned spacecraft - 4700 kg. The ejection pilot seat occupied the dummy “Ivan Ivanovich” (in a spacesuit), in the chest and abdominal cavities of which cells with guinea pigs, mice and other medical and biological objects were placed. Human blood, plant seeds and a non-catapulted container with dog Chernushka were placed in SA.  
When the ship returned after the TDU was turned off, the cable-outlets of the cable connecting the CA and software were not separated. Therefore, the two parts of the ship entered the atmosphere separated but still connected by a cable-mast, and only when it burned out did the CA and software completely separate. The estimated landing point is 412 km. The descent vehicle landed successfully after one orbit around the Earth, 260 km northeast of Kuybyshev and 2 km from the village of Stary Tok (55 ° 22 'n, 52 ° E). During the flight, a successful photo test of reconnaissance equipment for the Zenit spacecraft was held. The photographs showed airplanes at aerodromes.  
On March 13, at a meeting with the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, it was decided to give the astronaut a sealed cipher lock code giving access to the manual landing control before the flight.  
On March 15, the Six completed a pre-flight medical examination at the Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine, and then met with K.A. Vershinin, who said kind words of farewell. In the evening, Yuri Gagarin brought his wife Valentina with his newborn daughter Galya home from the maternity hospital.  
Early the next morning, astronauts along with N.P. Kamanin, L.I.Goreglyad, and E.A. Karpov flew to Kuibyshev on three Il-14 planes. In the area of Smyshlyaevka airfield, the CA was awaiting the landing of another ship with a dummy “Ivan Ivanovich” and a dog on board. The astronauts were supposed to observe the landing of the ship and the chair with the dummy.  
In anticipation of the launch, they were accommodated in the sanatorium of the Volga military district. However, on March 17, the launch of the satellite ship was postponed for several days, and the astronauts flew to Tyuratam.  
On March 18, 1961, the astronauts met with S.P. Korolev, V.P.Glushko and M.V. Keldysh on the 2nd platform. Korolev asked technical questions, then everyone went through the assembly building - MIK. In the evening, the pilots of Vostok studied the Instruction for an Astronaut.  
In the morning of March 19, six astronauts, together with KP Feoktistov, studied the possibility of landing a ship in the USSR on different turns of the flight in case after the first turn of landing did not take place. All landing sites as well as the points of inclusion of the TDU were inflicted on flight chart. In the evening, the training participants worked out a negotiation plan for the co-smith with the Earth. In the following days, the astronauts observed the preparation of the rocket with the Fifth Satellite-Ship.  
On March 20 and 21, 1961, Gagarin, Titov and Nelyubov conducted training sessions on the clothing of a spacesuit, studied the organization of splashdown and search on the water.  
On the evening of March 23, terrible news arrived at the test site - a student of the detachment Valentin Bondarenko died in the pressure chamber. The astronauts were shocked by this message; to Valentine, everything is very  
well treated. He was very communicative and also the youngest in the detachment. At 18 o'clock, Gagarin and Titov put on sandals, then they were transported to the rocket, and they took the elevator, but they did not take the ship. Everything was like before the real flight.


	8. Project Vostok:flight of the fifth spacecraft

On March 25, 1961, at 08:54:00 UHF, the Fifth spacecraft / satellite (3KA No2) was launched and successfully launched into orbit. Its parameters were: heights - 178.1х 247 km, inclination - 64 ° 54 ’, orbital period - 88.42 min.  
The package bundle of this ship was similar to the previous one, only the dog was named Asterisk. In general, she was Luck, but on the eve of the flight Yuri Gagarin gave her a new name.  
During the flight, five cosmonauts were at the measuring point (PI) and were negotiating on behalf of the cosmonaut taking off (call sign “Cedar”) with Pavel Popovich who was in the bunker.  
During the descent, the same refusal repeated as on March 9: the cable-and-mast connector was not separated. Nevertheless, the SA with the dog Zvezdochka and a dummy in a chair successfully landed 45 km south-east of Votkinsk (56 ° 47'S, 54 ° 27'V.). The flight estimated landing point was 660 km.  
During this flight, there was also a successful test of photoreconnaissance equipment for specified objects in Africa and Turkey. The photographs showed the Turkish city of Alexandretta and the concrete strip of the airfield. In addition, several ... "flying saucers" were recorded. N.P. Kamanin in his diary wrote: “In form, these are not plates, but glasses or vases placed one on another. The outlines of these beautiful and somewhat fabulous figures are very clear, I would say, even sharp. It is hard to believe that these are optical foci in the atmosphere; “Plates” are perceived as real objects — I just want to touch them with my hand ”.


	9. Project Vostok:preparation for the first space flight is completed

On March 29, 1961, the State Commission, chaired by K.N. Rudnev, heard S.P.Korolyov’s proposal to launch a man aboard the Vostok ship.  
On the same day, a meeting of the Military Industrial Commission (MIC) was held under the chairmanship of D. Ustinov, which unanimously decided to make the next launch manned, despite the fact that it went (4 liters of lithium chloride solution were separated out of it). They did not have time to test the NAL and the suspension system when landing on water, they could not achieve normal operation of the gas analyzer. The commission decided to carry out the necessary tests, but to disconnect the gas analyzer, since Atmospheric composition abnormalities in the cabin have not yet been noted.  
The commission edited and signed a report to the CPSU Central Committee on readiness to conduct the world's first human space flight. Three versions of the TASS report were attached to the report: 1) on a successful flight (announced immediately after the launch); 2) on successful landing (immediately after landing); 3) about an emergency landing in the ocean or on another's territory with the request to the states to assist the cosmonaut. The Commission also made an important decision: remove the emergency detonation system from the ship. The launch was proposed to be held on April 10–20.

On the same day, two successful bailouts of the tester with a seat from an Il-28 plane were carried out at LII. Up to April 3, they managed to carry out three more successful ejection from the aircraft, as well as ejection from the SA from the ground level and the discharge of the SA from 5 m. the cabin for 6–7 days, with the required one and a half hours.  
On April 3, Gagarin, Titov and Nelyubov recorded their pre-start speeches on a tape recorder. The speech text was edited by N.P. Kamanin and sounded from the mouth of Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin on the day start on April 12 on all radio stations of the Soviet Union.   
On the same day, a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU was held, which was conducted by N. S. Khrushchev. After the report of DF Ustinov, the Presidium gave permission to conduct the world's first manned flight into space.  
On April 4, the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force K.A. Vershinin signed flight certificates to Yu.A.Gagarin, G.S.Titov and G.G.Nelyubov,  
On April 5, the whole expedition headed by N.P. Kamanin set off for the test site. The astronauts flew on different aircraft: on one — Gagarin, Nelyubov, and Popovich. On the second - Titov, Nikolayev, Bykovsky.

There was only a week left before the launch, and who was the first to fly into space was not yet decided. N.P.Kamanin in his diary made the following entry: “So, who is Gagarin or Titov? ... It is difficult to decide who to send for flight, and it is just as difficult to decide which of the three worthy to be made world renown and forever preserved his name in the history of mankind ”.  
On April 6, S.P. Korolyov, M.V. Keldysh, and N.P. Kamanin approved the task for a single-turn flight. It indicated the objectives of the flight and the actions of the astronaut during his normal course, as well as in “special” cases. On the same day, Gagarin and Titov tried on scaffolds and drove a suspended parachute system under them.  
On April 6, a closed meeting of the State Commission on the readiness of the ship and the launch vehicle for launch was held. As a result, the chairman of the commission, K.N. Rudnev, decided to launch on April 11-12, 1961.  
On April 7, at the 2nd site of the cosmodrome Gagarin, Titov and Nelyubov conducted manual descent classes. 

On April 8, an “open” meeting of the State Commission took place led by K.N. Rudnev on the launch of the ship. About that they tried and approved the astronaut's mission for the flight, heard reports on the readiness of the search tools. Then the decision was made: “To perform a single flight around the Earth at an altitude of 180–230 km and a duration of 1 hour and 30 minutes with a landing in a given area. The purpose of the flight is to check the possibility of flying a man in space on a specially equipped ship, check the equipment of the ship and radio communication in flight, make sure that the means of landing the ship and the cosmonaut are reliable ”.  
Then, only the members of the State Commission remained in the hall and discussed in a narrow composition the proposal of N.P. Kamanin to appoint the pilot of the Vostok spacecraft. Yuri Gagarin was approved by the first pilot, and German Titov was approved as a reserve.  
Then they discussed the possibility of admitting a sports commission to the landing site for flight registration as a world record. It was decided: in the preparation of the documents “to prevent the disclosure of secret data about the polygon and the carrier”. In addition, they decided to give the astronaut a cipher of the logical lock from the ship's manual control console in a special package. Discussing the possibility of an emergency launch of an astronaut at the start, it was decided that up to the 40th second of the flight, S.P. Korolev or N.P.Kamanin will send a command for the ejection, and later, the spacecraft will eject automatically.  
In the evening, Titov and Gagarin conducted a training session on a ship at the MIC in the presence of members of the State Commission.  
April 9 - Sunday. The astronauts rested.  
On April 10, N.P. Kamanin informed Gagarin and Titov about the appointment of the first cosmonaut of the planet. On the same day, a friendly meeting of KN Rudnev, KS Moskalenko, SP Korolev with all six cosmonauts was held at the hotel complex for managers in the city of Leninsk. Also present were V.P. Mishin, L.A. Voskresensky, B.Ye.Chertok and about 20 other people. Korolev said: “... It has been decided that Gagarin will fly first, and others will follow him. Already this year about ten Vostok ships will be prepared ”.  
In the evening, a ceremonial meeting of the State Commission was held, where Korolev reported on the readiness of the ship and the rocket for launch. Then an open meeting of the State Commission with the press took place, so to speak, the “state committee state commission” ...  
On April 11, in the morning, the PH 8K72K with the ship 3KA No3 was taken to the start, and then KP Feoktistov conducted classes with astronauts. At 13:00 local time (11:00 Moscow time) at the launch complex Yu.A. Gagarin met with combat crews who prepared the rocket and the ship for launch.  
After the meeting, the spacemen moved to the “Marshal's house” on the 2nd platform, where the Chief Marshal of the Strategic Missile Forces, Mikhail I. Nedelin, used to live. There, Gagarin and Titov, as well as the head of the CPC, E.A. Karpov, doctor A.V. Nikitin and N.P. Kamanin, had to spend the night before the start. The astronauts had lunch with “cosmic” food. Menu: Sorrel puree with  
meat, meat sandwiches and chocolate pâté. At 21:30 the Lion King came to the astronauts and said good night. Gagarin and Titov fell asleep about 22 hours.  
April 12 astronauts raised at 05:30 local time. At 06:00 there was a pre-launch meeting of the State Commission - there were no comments. Astronauts at this time wore scandals and arrived at the start at 08:50. Soon, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin took a seat in the ship. The hatch behind him was closed by the leading designer OG Ivanovsky and the spacesuit specialist AF Vostokov. It soon became clear that the hatch was closed poorly, there was no electrical contact. Again I had to open, and then close.


	10. Vostok 1:the first manned flight into space

TASS message  
On the world's first human flight into outer space  
“On April 12, 1961 in the Soviet Union the first in the world spacecraft“ Vostok ”with a man on board was put into orbit around the Earth.  
The pilot of the space shuttle Vostok cosmonaut is a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a major pilot * Gagarin Yuri Alekseevich ... "

———————-

The carrier of the carrier, with which the ship was launched into orbit, and the place and time of its launch (09:07:00 UHF) were not mentioned in the TASS report. The mass of the ship (4725 kg) and frequencies of the onboard transmitters were named, the preliminary parameters of the orbit were announced: 175x302 km. Later, with a detailed interpretation of these measurements, it turned out that the ship went to an even higher orbit with an apex of 327 km instead of the calculated (and declared at the State Commission) 230 km. The reason for this was also established: during the launch of the 156 second, the power supply unit of the antennas of the radio system of the central unit A failed. The command did not pass, the engine of unit A was disconnected after the estimated time turned out to be much higher than planned. If the engine braking system in the Vostok had not been triggered, the ship would not have braked for 5–7 days, as envisaged by the backup landing system, but for 15–20 days. Naturally, the astronaut by this time would only marginally be alive.

After launching, the ship rotated slowly. It was normal: no extinguishing of ship perturbations after separation from the step was provided for. The Siberian measuring points heard Gagarin's voice: “The object rotates to the right somewhat. Good! Beautiful! Feeling good. Continuing flight. Everything goes great. ”  
After leaving the Kamchatka point of communication, the Vostok soon passed over the Hawaiian islands, crossed the Pacific Ocean, rounded Cape Horn from the south and approached Africa. The cosmonaut remained in good health. Yuri Gagarin observed the Earth, stars and outer space, recorded the instrument indicators and dictated it all onto the onboard recorder and recorded in the logbook. In weightlessness, a pencil “dropped” him - and there was nothing to write. In the onboard tape recorder, long before the end of the flight, the film ended. Gagarin manually rewound it to the middle and continued recording, so there is no information about the mid-flight (from 09:27 to 10:03 UHF) on the tape.  
Immediately after the separation of the ship was included on the landing. At 09:51, the construction of orientation began, and at 09:55:10, the "East" was oriented for de-orbiting. At 10:25:34, the braking remote control turned on, but it turned off 0.5–1.0 s before the estimated time due to the end of the fuel (the cause is valve sticking, due to which some of the fuel fell into the separator cavity). bag, not into the combustion chamber). After the end of the fuel line, the engine supercharging remained open, and nitrogen, as well as steering nozzles, under the pressure of about 60 atm, began to flow into the steering nozzles for tanning and yawing. This led to the spin of the ship at a speed of 30 ° / s.

This is how Yu.A. Gagarin himself spoke about this: “The corps de ballet” turned out: head, legs, with very high rotation speed. Everything was spinning. I see Africa, the horizon, the sky. Only had time to close from the Sun, so that the light did not fall into the eyes. I put my feet to the porthole, but did not close the curtains. I was curious about what was happening. I was waiting for the moment of separation. There was no separation ... "

Early disconnection of the TDU violated the regular cyclogram of the descent, and the command for automatic separation of the SA and software failed. They were divided according to the backup version from thermal sensors at an altitude of 130 km (with a delay of the standard cyclogram by 10 minutes).  
The ejection took place at an altitude of about 7 km. On descent, in addition to the main, for some unknown reason,  
and the reserve parachute opened, and Yura could not open the breathing valve for several minutes. The rest of the landing in the area of the village of Smelovka of the Saratov region, not far from the coast of the Volga, was normal. The estimated landing site was 110 km to the south of Stalingrad, but the Vostok village landed with a large flight — and in places well known to Gagarin: he studied in Saratov,where in Engels was held rush training. At 10 hours 55 minutes Moscow time, the Soviet ship Vostok made a safe landing in a given region of the Soviet Union,” TASS reported. On the separate landing of the ship and the astronaut was not reported.  
Only recently, in the historical album “Pages of History: Pokrovsk-Engels,” did the data appear, allowing you to clarify the circumstances of the landing  
about 12 minutes. According to the Gagarin report, the SA landed earlier and closer to the Volga coast - by 2–4 km. The landing time of the SA should be close to the declared TASS - 10:55 UHF.  
The first to meet Gagarin in the land was the forester's wife, Anna Akimovna Takhtarova, with her granddaughter Rita, and from the field camp, mechanics from the Shevchenko collective from the village of Uzmorye came running. Major Akhmed Gasiev arrived at ZIL-151, who delivered the astronaut to the rocket battalion in the Podgorye village. After the report to the commander of the air defense division, Yu.Vovka, Gagarin went to the ship. On his way he was found by a Mi-4 helicopter of the search group. On it, Gagarin was delivered to Engels, and from there to Kuibyshev.  
Thus, the flight of Yu.A. Gagarin on the Vostok passenger ship began the era of manned flights into space.


	11. Vostok 2: a day in space

Since the well-being of Yuri Gagarin during the whole single-turn flight was good. However, flying dogs for  
The satellite drivers showed that on the second and third rounds they lost their vigor, refused to eat, slowed down their response to external stimuli.  
The question arose: what is the duration of the next flight? Air Force physicians from the Institute of Aviation and Cosmic Medicine (IAKM), headed by V.Yazdovsky, feared that the same unexplored factors would also affect the spacecraft. In addition, it was not known how the astronaut would transfer the overloads when returning from a daily flight. Therefore, doctors "stood" on three turns. The OKB􏰀1 designers, headed by S.P. Korolev, insisted on a daily flight. The arguments were as follows: first, after three turns, landing is possible only in a densely populated area of the European part of the USSR, which will complicate the search and evacuation. Secondly, only a daily flight will provide an opportunity to fundamentally solve the problem of how harmful the effects of cosmic factors are. Astronaut participation in the mission would not affect the ship (in the standard version), and the landing should automatically go on at any time it is feeling. Thirdly, there was only one ready ship (3KA No4), and it should be used with maximum benefit. Fourth, manual descent has not yet been mastered, and landing on the command from the earth on the 2nd to 7th orbits is complicated by the considerable variation in distance due to the low accuracy of the solar orientation. Finally, in OKB􏰀1, ship revisions were carried out, allowing even a weekly flight to be performed.  
The developers' arguments were persuasive - and at a meeting in Sochi on May 20, 1961, the parties agreed that the flight would be a daily flight, and the astronaut, in order to be able to make an early departure, would experience manual control.  
The direct preparation of space pilots for flight began in May and ended in August 1961. G.S. Titov, A.G.Nikolaev, V.F. Bykovsky, P.Popovich and G.G. Nelyubov became part of the flight. Before the flight, the State Commission made a decision to appoint German Titov as a pilot-cosmonaut of Vostok-2, and Andriyan Nikolayev as a backup pilot.

Vostok 􏰀2 ”started on August 6, 1961 at 9 am Moscow time. The mass of the ship was 4731 kg.  
The TASS report about the launch was transmitted only after they were convinced: the ship was in orbit, the astronaut was in perfect order.  
Vostok-2 had some differences from the first Vostok. The radio communication has been improved, the television system is replaced. The telemetry was supplemented by the shortwave signal system, which served to locate the ship and duplicated the transmission of the main medical parameters.  
During the flight, Titov twice (on the 1st and on the 7th orbit) operated the ship manually, carried out its orientation and stabilization. The rest of the time it was loaded by checking onboard systems and photographing the Earth and space with a camera. At the beginning of the 2nd turn of the Titov for the first time  
he filmed (“Kazbek” movie camera) and continued to engage in it during the entire flight in short sessions. He radioed, ate and drank specially prepared food. Here is the menu of his lunch: 150 g of soup concentrate with bread, meat and liver pate in tubes, blackcurrant juice.  
For the first time in weightlessness, Titov was used by an acceleration device and even performed physical exercises (at the 6th orbit). He also managed to sleep first in flight, and German Titov was not only the first to sleep in weightlessness, but also the first ... slept through the connection time, which caused great concern on Earth. German Titov recalled: “There was no alarm clock on the ship, and the“ duty shift ”of my brain, set up to wake up at 2 am, worked a little earlier. Went up 15 minutes before the appointed time. It was decided to puncture these 15 minutes with a punctual point. But when I opened my eyes a second time, I saw that the hand indicated 2 hours and 35 minutes! Slept through! Here is the garden! After all, on Earth, they may think about some kind of trouble, they may seriously get worried ... Two minutes left to finally get rid of sleep, and I started to work. ”  
How nervous these 37 minutes were on Earth, we can only guess. German Stepanovich said that shortly after the flight “there was a joke:“ Armenian radio is asked: why did Titov sleep in space? Radio replies: Titov overslept because he used the alarm clock of the Yerevan Watch Factory ”. In fact, at that time no one had made a space clock. But for the next flight of the industry, the development of a space alarm clock was ordered ”.

Because of the “motion sickness” disease, Titov was accompanied during the flight by a nauseous condition that prevented eating, resting, and carrying out the flight program. Titov took notes on the flight recorder and on the onboard recorder.  
Landing SA ship "Vostok􏰀2" did not happen quite regularly. After the brake motor system was turned off, the CA and software were divided, but the pressure cable of the electrical connector of the cable-mast was not shot out due to an error in the installation of electrical circuits. The compartments were connected by a cable that burned only in dense layers of the atmosphere. A similar situation was on the 4th and 5th ships satellites, but then there was not enough information to figure out the reasons.  
A further landing of the SA and the cosmonaut who had escaped from it went smoothly, but Titov sat ten meters from the railway line along which the train was passing. To eliminate such situations, the State Commission wanted to involve a representative of the Ministry of Railway Roads in order to agree on the schedule of trains, but then decided to move the landing site from Volzhiv, in Kazakhstan.  
The daily flight of German Titov made the main conclusion: a person can live and work in weightlessness!


	12. Vostok 3/4:first group flight

With his daily flight from 6 to 7 August 1961, German Titov proved that it is possible to work in space. It was necessary to set and solve the following problem. S.P.Korolyov proposed to launch not only one ship in a space ship in November, but three ships at once, making a group flight. Launches should have been made at a daily interval, and thus the flight time of one of the ships would exceed the power of three days (a new record). But the Air Force commanders decided to conduct a daily group flight of only two ships, with a possible extension of the flight for up to five days, depending on the cosmonauts' well-being. The corresponding letters were sent to D. F. Ustinov, L. V. Smirnov, M. V. Keldysh and S. P. Korolev and caused indignation of industry leaders. A serious discussion ensued.  
While the court was in charge, Korolev decided to conduct at least a single three-day flight in November. Kamanin did not object and singled out A. N. Nikolayev, P. P. Popovich, G. S. Shonin and B. V. Volynov, who in September began to prepare.

On October 28, the State Commission made a decision to launch Zenits first (photo prospectors based on Vostok), and therefore a single three-day flight in November 1961 could not take place. True, Korolev told Kamanin that the launch could be carried out at the end of December 1961 - the beginning of January 1962 and requested that the astronauts be in monthly readiness for such a flight.  
At the beginning of December 1961 it became clear that the completion of the modifications made to the ship's design after the generalization of the results of the flights of Yu.A. Gagarin and G.S.Titov was delayed. It was necessary to ensure that the reserve parachute of the cosmonaut did not spontaneously open and that the spacesuit could not be filled with water during landing, to eliminate the malfunction of the radio equipment and the gas analyzer and other observations. On December 26, when testing the refined parachute system and spacesuit in Feodosia, new comments were revealed, so the tests continued in January and February.  
In addition, Zenit􏰀2 also brought problems. The launch of the first photo prospectus on December 11, 1961 turned out to be emergency due to the failure of the third stage of the PH 8K72K. But it was just such a rocket that was used for a manned field! It was necessary to deal with the rocket and urgently prepare and launch the second Zenit. The manned flight was postponed until March 1962.

Already on December 28, astronauts completed preparations for a long solitary flight and continued to prepare in the mode of maintaining fitness.  
In early February 1962, improvements were completed on two ships, which made it possible to carry out not a single, but a group flight. S.P.Korolev reported about the flight plan to D.F. Ustinov. He, in turn, supported this idea and reported to Khrushchev. The latter, wanting to “comfort the nose” of the Americans and “prove to the whole world that they were hopelessly abandoned by us”, gave the order to speed up preparations for such a flight. On February 17, DF Ustinov announced a monthly readiness for the flight of two ships.  
By this time, seven cosmonauts were already in the mode of maintaining readiness for flight on the Vostok: AG Nikolaev, P.R.Popovich, G.S.Shinin, B.V. Volynov, G.G. VF Bykovsky and V.M. Komarov. Of these, on February 20, N.P. Kamanin selected the most prepared, in his opinion, Nikolaev, Popovich, Nelyubov and Bykovsky for accelerated preparation for a group flight, which the industry noted on March 10–12. Intensive preparation of this four began.

Less than a month remained before the flight, and the duration and the flight program were not yet agreed. SP Korolev still insisted on a three-day flight, and the Air Force - on a daily flight. The Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force approved the flight program for one day with the possibility of extension to three by a decision of the State Commission during the flight. As a result, the dispute between the Air Force and industry has escalated. In the end, the Air Force made some concessions, and Kamanin discussed with the astronauts the possibility of two-day flights for both ships and enlisted their support. But on March 8, S.P. Korolev met with the astronauts and convinced them of the need for a three-day flight. On March 27, the cosmonautica groups again came under the hard pressure of Kamanin ... and promised to stop two-night flights.

In the meantime, it became clear that due to delays with the next Zenit, the launch of the ships would take place no earlier than the end of March - the beginning of April. March 7, Korolev decided to prepare a start  
on April 5–10, but it soon became clear that this period was unreal. On April 10, the flights were planned for May 10–15, so in mid-April, Nikolayev, Popovich, Nelyubov, and Bykovsky were sent to Feodosia, where they completed landing on the ground and on the water by April 27 according to an additional program.  
On April 18, in a dispute with industry, Kamanin attempted to “drive around” Korolev, who was at Baikonur, and to agree on the duration with the chairman of the military-industrial complex, L.V. Smirnov and his deputy, S.Zverev. But in the absence of the Queen, Smirnov refused to even discuss the matter. And Zverev sent Kamanin an official Korolev proposal for three-day flights with a proposal to harmonize it, which caused Nikolay Petrovich to be extremely indignant. Finally, on April 26, the second Zenith (Cosmos-4) was launched into orbit.

If the next launch of the Zenith on the new 8A92 rocket (the next modification of the same “seven”) took place on May 5–10 and was successful, then on May 20–30 it would be possible to launch “Vostok”, but ... The launch of the Zenith was held only on June 1, 1962 and ended in a serious carrier accident. The engine of one of the “bows” turned off for 1.8 seconds of flight, and unit B broke away from the “package”, fell to the start and started up, severely damaging the launch facility and its equipment. The rest of the rocket fell 300 m from the start.  
It took a serious repair, which lasted almost 2 months. The start date of “Vostok” again became uncertain - after all, after the repair of the start-up complex, it was necessary to start the next “Zenith”!

It is time for the annual medical examinations of the astronauts, and as a result, Grigory Nelyubov was removed from training for flight due to health reasons. He didn’t get into training anymore - the doctors' claims, and then disciplinary actions led to his removal from the detachment. Then he stopped training for health reasons and Georgy Shonin was added from the reserve group. Only Nikolaev, Popovich, Bykovsky, Volynov and Komarov continued to prepare for the group field.  
On July 16, a launch commission meeting was held under the chairmanship of L. V. Smirnov V. Barmin reported that the restoration work at the launch complex would be completed by August 1. The Commission decided to launch the Vostok on August 5–10 with an interval of 24 hours. Although N.P. Kamanin announced that five cosmonauts are ready for a three-day flight, but he also stated that the Air Force is offering to fly only for two days. Therefore, the question of the flight duration remained unresolved. But after 3 days, Marshal S.I. Rudenko, Deputy Commander of the Air Force, agreed to a three-day flight.  
On July 27, a meeting of Nikolaev, Popovich, Bykovsky, as well as a group of women cosmonauts with SP Korolev took place in the OKB􏰀1. The chief engineer officially with the astronauts approved the mission for the flight: "The duration of the flight is up to three days."  
On July 28, another Zenit-2 photo reconnaissance camera (Cosmos-7) was successfully launched to check the carrier and launch complex from the 1st Baikonur site. Now you can go on a group flight.

On July 30 a meeting of the State Commission on the launch of Vostok took place again. We decided to launch ships on August 9 and 10.  
On August 2, the expedition flew from Moscow to the kosmodrome on three Il-14 planes. In its composition were all prepared for this program: Nikolaev,Popovich, Bykovsky, Komarov and Volynov, as well as German Titov. On August 4, all five astronauts tried on their “combat” spacesuits, drove the parachute system under them. Then each cosmonaut got into the ship and conducted all the prelaunch preparation there. On August 6 at the technical meeting it was confirmed that both ships - 3KA No5 and 3KA No6 will be ready for launch on August 10 and 11.

7 August, a meeting of the State Commission was held at the MIK conference room. S.P. Korolyov reported on the readiness of the ships, and N.P. Kamanin on the readiness of the astronauts. “The Commission approved the commander of Vostok-3, Captain A.G.Nikolayev, and his deputy (as doubles at that time), Captain V.F. Bykovsky. Major P.Popovich was appointed commander of the “East Caucasus” 4, and VM Komarov, engineer, was appointed his deputy. Captain BV Volynov was appointed the “spare” cosmonaut for both ships. ”  
The launches of the ships Vostok-3 and Vostok-4 with Andriyan Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich were successfully held on 11 and 12 August 1962.

On the first day, Andriyan Nikolaev completed a very important experiment: he got rid of the tether system and sailed from the ejection seat. Having floated in the cabin, he returned to the chair and fastened himself to it. It was very difficult to work in a ship tied to a chair, and it was necessary to untie it. But then it seemed that such "swimming" is associated with a great risk. If the cosmonaut could not return to the chair and buckle up, then a bailout during landing would be impossible, and would have to land in the descent vehicle. At that time, there was no soft landing system, and the astronaut would be at serious risk if he hit the ground. But the experiment was good. Andriyan Nikolaev recalled:

“The moment came when the program needed to get out of the chair. I untied the straps and ... swam to the ceiling. He pushed a little away from the wall of the cabin and, like a ball, flew off to another wall. Just like in a fairy tale ... I became easier to fluff! He worked in the untied state for an hour. He rolled over the chair, pointed his finger at the cabin, and found himself again in the chair. ”  
The ship “Vostok-4” with Pavel Popovich on board was put into orbit so precisely that the ships were in close proximity to each other.  
P. Popovich recalls: “He went into orbit, immediately the ship saw him. There were about four kilometers between us (in fact, the minimum distance was about 6500 m). Andrew began: “Golden Eagle, Golden Eagle, I am Falcon. How do you hear me? ”I shouted to him:“ Hi, Andrei! I not only hear you, I love you  
I see! You're flying to my right like a little moon. ” - “What are you talking about, Berkut, - Andrei says, - they will curse us” (for communicating in plain language, without call signs) I: “Oh, come on! Let them try - they will get to us to scold us. ”  
The heights and periods of circulation of ships, however, differed, and then for three days the “East” moved away from each other.

On August 12, Pavel Povich had to conduct an experiment on leaving the chair. He recalls: “I got rid of, but did not surface. It turned out - tightly clamped in the cradle. Andrei advised me: "You push yourself away from him." Out of habit, I, as on Earth, pushed off and how ... I hit my head on the ceiling! True, the head was protected by a helmet, so nothing terrible happened. But for this reason, for the first time in Russia, a good Russian voice was heard ... "  
During the entire flight, the astronauts carried out technical experiments, filmed and photographed the Earth, ate, drank, slept, practiced physical exercise. The astronauts' television images transmitted from the spacecraft were first broadcast on the Soviet television network, and through the Intervention system - to most European countries.  
On the evening of August 13, the State Commission discussed the possibility of extending Nikolayev’s flight on the fourth day — appetite comes with eating! Constructors were worried about a decrease in temperature from 26 ° C after elimination to 13 ° C; however, this temperature has stabilized on the last seven orbits. In addition, the Tral telemetry equipment did not work during the 10 night turns. All the main designers were in favor of extending the flight for a day. Naturally, Kamanin spoke against it. Keldysh, Gagarin, and Titov took the neutral position. Marshal Rudenko spoke so ardently that he aroused Korolev’s indignation. A quarrel broke out. We decided to talk about this with Nikolai Kolayev himself, to find out his opinion. Nikolaev reported: "I can continue the flight for another day." Early on the morning of August 14, the State Commission made a unanimous decision: to complete the flight of Vostok-3 at the end of 4 days - on August 15. On the evening of the same day, the possibility of extending up to 4 days and the flight of Popovich was discussed. Disputes flared up with a new force. Kamanin, as always, was against it, but, oddly enough, Korolev did not insist on this, although the astronaut's technique and well-being allowed him to do this. It was important for S. Korolyov to overcome the three-day frontier, and one or two astronauts would do this — it did not matter much. L.V. Smirnov did not take responsibility for himself and reported everything on the phone personally to Khrushchev, who answered: “... Why do we have to abuse him? Ask and if he wants and can fly longer, allow him to fly for 4 days. ” Marshal Rudenko consulted with Minister of Defense Marshal A.A. Grechko. He also did not mind.

When asked to Popovich, he also agreed to fly another day and land on the 65th orbit. It seemed everything was decided, but ...  
On August 15 at 7 am, the State Commission again discussed this issue, since the temperature in the booth of Vostok-4 dropped to the minimum acceptable value of 10 ° C. Humidity also dropped, and they began to fear oxygen deficiency. There was not enough time to make a decision, the 48th round was ending (the planned landing should have been on the 49th round). And here Pavel Popovich's message followed from orbit: “I observe a thunderstorm”.  
All were surprised, because under the official code, this meant that the astronaut's nausea had reached vomiting. The excitement was such that the conversation about the extension of the flight on the 4th day stopped with itself. Soon, Popovich was reassured by all - he reported that his health was good and that he “observed the meteorological thunderstorm and lightning,” but the time for making the decision to extend the flight was not taken. So Pavel Popovich deprived himself of one day of flight, and Andryan Nikolayev became not only the world record-holder for the duration of the flight, but also the first cosmonaut who had a long flight beyond the previously scheduled period. He was in flight for 3 days 22 hours 22 minutes, and Pavel Popovich stayed away for the planned three days (more precisely, 2 days 22 hours 57 minutes).

On August 15, Vostok-3 landed not on the Volga, like previous ships, but in Kazakhstan south of Karaganda. A few minutes later, “Vostok-4” landed about 300 km from it. Nikolayev and Popovich, according to the cyclogram, ejected and landed in the same areas.  
Here is how Pavel Popovich recalls that landing: “I catapulted normally at an altitude of 8000 m, and at an altitude of 1500 m a wearable emergency reserve (NAZ) separated from the chair and hung on a long railing. This I felt "back seat." And suddenly, I began to rock like a pendulum with a NAL in contrast to it. After all, he weighs 40 kg! The parachute gradually began to turn around and, at an altitude of 1000 m, the wind blew into my face. “Well, I think, Paša, you have fallen ... After all, he will smash the land, and you can’t do anything ...” 40 meters before the earth, the buildup stopped, as NAL flopped to the ground and anchored me. But all the same, I moved as far as the spacesuit allowed, and I felt like a bang! I fucked my legs, then got up on my head and quickly pulled off the parachute. Then how groaned! I did not restrain myself - and it became easier ... I moved my arms and legs - well, everything seems fine. He took off his spacesuit, started calling a radio station (neither the main nor the reserve one worked). Then I see - the plane appeared. I then began to launch rockets. They saw me and started to decline, and I started to run there, to show that I am healthy, everything is fine and I don’t need to jump - I don’t need help. I went to the team of doctors who should help me, and I thought that they would startle everyone with such a wind, because they only have 4–5 jumps. But they nevertheless jumped ... It turned out to be a curious picture: the one whom they should save is worn across the steppe and puts out a cupola ... The doctor, the lieutenant colonel, runs up to me, and his face is torn. I say: "Is there iodine?" - "Yes." - “Come on, I'll brush your face ...” After the bustle was over, I looked around. I look: nothing happens to myself, in the steppe, stones stick out sharply and the ground is about 10 by 10 meters, free from these stones. And I landed on it ... ”

Nikolayev and Popovich were taken by helicopter to the airfield of the Sary􏰀 Shagan test site, and from there the next day, on August 16, to Il-18 to Orenburg, since Kuybyshev did not receive airplanes due to bad weather. On August 17, astronauts were transported from Orenburg to Kuybyshev to “Obkomov dachas”, where they underwent a medical examination and rested. On August 18, Moscow met the heroes of space.  
The flights of Andriyan Nikolaev and Pavel Popovich have once again confirmed that it is possible to live and work in space.


	13. Vostok 5/6:the Hawk and the Seagull

After the flights of Yu.A.Gagarin and G.S.Titov in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the leadership of the military-industrial complex, the Ministry of Defense considered various options for the continuation of space exploration with the main task: to keep the priority before the USA. At first, they intended to carry out a long (8–9-day) flight of one ship, then a group flight of two ships (it was carried out by AGNikolachev and P.Popovich in 1962). At the end of August 1961, N.P. Kamanin came up with the idea of sending a woman into space. He was supported by Marshal S.I. Rudenko, Deputy Commander of the Air Force, and then by the General Staff. On December 30, 1961, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU allowed to recruit five women into the detachment. On March 12, 1962, Tatyana Kuznetsova, Irina Solovyova and Valentina Tereshkova were assigned to the detachment of cosmonauts, and another order, dated April 3, was assigned to the detachment. Immediately, the girls began to undergo cosmic flight training.  
The initiative to select women passed by S.P. Korolev and caused a clear rejection of him. Nevertheless, he was forced to do everything so that the flight of a woman took place. In August 1962, immediately after the flight of Nikolaev and Popovich, the State Commission, headed by Leonid Vasilyevich Smirnov, outlined a woman's first flight of up to 3 days at the end of October. But SMAlekseev, the chief designer of the Zvezda plant, said that the spacesuits for Tereshkova, Ponomareva, and Solovieva (namely, they were in the lead in preparation) will be ready only by November. So, in October 1962, the flight could not have worked well ...

Taking into account the forced delay, as well as the successful group flight of Nikolayev and Popovich, N.P. Kamanin proposed to carry out a group flight of two or even three ships with the participation of a woman. But this was not possible, since the factory No88 in the reserve was only two "Vostok", and OKB􏰀1 already with might led the development of the Soyuz spacecraft. It is likely that this is why the ship for the women's flight was not built either by November or December 1962.  
On November 27–29, 1962, the women's group passed the final examinations, and only Kuznetsova was not admitted to them due to ambiguities in health. All the girls successfully coped with the program. The Admissions Committee recommended that four women be assigned to the CPC staff with the assignment of the military rank “Junior Lieutenant”, which was done. (Kuznetsova passed the exams in January 1965 and was also enrolled as a cosmonaut.)  
The question of priority immediately arose: who should be recommended for the first space flight? Here is how NPKamanin wrote about this: “Any of the astronauts can fly on the Vostok spacecraft ... Of all four, only Tereshkova has no higher education ... Ponomarev has a more thorough theoretical she is more prepared and more capable than others — she grasps everything on the fly, but in her behavior much needs to be corrected. She is alone, self-loving, exaggerates her abilities and does not mind drinking, smoking and walking. According to all objective data, Solovyov is most physically and morally enduring, but she is somewhat closed and not active enough in public work. Tereshkova is an active social activist, capable of performing well, enjoys great prestige among all who know her. Yorkina's technical skills and physical abilities are slightly lower than her friends, but she persistently improves them and will undoubtedly be a good cosmonaut. Tereshkova should be sent first to a space flight, Solovyov could be her doubler, and who will be cosmonaut No3, Ponomarev or Yorkina, this will decide the future. Tereshkova - Gagarin in a skirt, Solovyov by nature is very close to the nature of Nikolaev. ”  
Thus, priorities were formed, which survived until the flight itself.  
Until January 10, 1963, the girls were on vacation, and then began immediate preparations for the flight. On January 11, Korolev met with Kamanin, and they discussed the plan for the next flight. Considered the following program options:  
◆ flight of one ship with a woman for 1-3 days;  
◆ group flight of two ships with women with an interval of 1 day launch;  
◆ mixed version: a ship with a woman flies up to 3 days, and with a man 5–7 days.  
The final version was never adopted, nevertheless, on January 22, Kamanin set the task for the women's group: to prepare for a group flight on two ships by March 20, 1963. It was an arbitrary decision, not backed up by anything. Even the chairman of the State Commission, L.V. Smirnov, believed that in one of the two “Vostokovs” (No7) under construction, a woman should be sent, and the last (No8) should be sent to the museum. From its submission on March 8, 1963, a corresponding draft decision of the MIC was prepared, in which the woman’s flight was scheduled for April 1. But the decision was not made, since the Air Force categorically opposed a single female flight. On March 21, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, at the suggestion of the Secretary of the Central Committee F.R. Kozlov, decided: “Not to conduct a separate women's flight, to carry out it together with men's long flights”.  
Only on April 13, Korolev and Kamanin finally agreed on a flight program: on the first ship a man flies for 8 days, on the second - a woman for 2-3 days. The flight is possible in August 1963 (before this, launches of a series of interplanetary stations and Zeniths were planned). On April 19, it was decided: to prepare Tereshkova, Solovyov, Ponomarev, and Yorkina by this deadline.

Cosmonauts men also did not waste time. After the group flight of AGNikolaev and P.Popovich in August 1962, Valery Bykovsky, Boris Volynov and Vladimir Komarov remained in charge of the group. It was they who began preparing for a single long flight, originally scheduled for September 1962. But by that time neither the ship nor the flight program could be prepared, so by the end of 1962 the astronauts were preparing in the mode of maintaining fitness.  
On January 22, 1963, Kamanin set the group with the following task: to be ready for two long trips (5 days or more) to single flights at the end of 1963. On March 8, the Air Force and industry again clashed over the use of Vostok No8. Marshal S.I.Rudenko ordered the new head of the CPC, M.P.Odintsov, to train three men for flight in May, hoping to win over the industry. Uncertainty about the flight plan, despite the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU of 03/21/1963, lasted until mid-April, until Korolev and Kamaning came to a common opinion.  
On April 19, Kamanin ordered to prepare for a long flight in August 1963 by V.F. Bykovsky, B.V. Volynov, A.A.Leonov and E.V. Khrunov. Vladimir Komarov was not included in this group, because of his claims to the doctors. All four immediately proceeded to direct preparations.  
The decision of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers on 04/13/1963 recommended holding a group flight in August. But then suddenly it turned out that the resource of both ships, No7 and No8, ended in August. The system developers, despite the pressure of the Chief Designer, did not agree either to extend the resource or to replace it. Thus, the launch of both ships was necessary to carry out, contrary to the recommendations of the Central Committee, until June 15. Korolev sent a corresponding letter, and on April 29 the Central Committee of the CPSU decided to carry out a group flight in May 1963. It was only a month before the start, and if the women were completely ready, then the men still had to perform several jumps with a parachute, conduct training on the thermal layout of the ship, and Leonov and Khrunov still have training on the centrifuge.  
On May 6, when astronauts were still on parachute jumps in Feodosia, a new problem arose: because of unavailability of space suits, training on a mock up was delayed. Therefore, Bykovsky and Volynov could complete the preparation only by May 30, and Leonov and Khrunov not earlier than June 15. The main and most prepared cosmonaut was Bykovsky, and his weight in a spacesuit was 90.7 kg, while Volynov and Leonov had a weight of 14 kg more. Since the ship was overloaded with equipment for a long flight, it was very problematic to put a heavier cosmonaut into it. At the same time individual  
Bykovsky lodge did not fit either Volynov or Leonov. Thus, if Bykovsky had gone the distance, only Khronev could take his place, and he had not yet completed the training.  
Not everything was perfect for women. Yorkina could not stand the training on the thermal layout of the ship. She took off her spacesuit boots for 24 hours a day (they began to press), for three days she ate only half of the diet, because of which she fell into a swoon after the end of the training.  
Thus, three women (Tereshkova, Ponomarev and Solovyov) and only one man (Bykovsky) could actually be ready for the flight in May.  
On May 10, in a narrow circle of the State Commission (Chairman - Georgy Alexandrovich Tyulin), it was decided to launch the “Vostoky” on June 3-5. The candidates for the flight were:  
V.F. Bykovskiy, spare - B.V. Volynov (they found an opportunity to ease the ship and adjust the lodgment);  
V.V. Tereshkova, spare - I.B.Solovyeva and V.L.Ponomareva.  
On May 20, at the next State Commission, the Vostok notes were scheduled for the period from 5 to 10 June. Until the end of May, the astronauts completed the training and arrived at Baikonur on June 1.

On June 4, the State Commission discussed all the issues of preparing missiles and ships for launch and noted that on June 7, the start of Vostok 5 might not take place due to a strong gusty wind. On the same day, the “ceremonial” State Commission was held where astronauts were introduced to journalists: Majors Bykovsky and Volynov, junior lieutenants Tereshkova, Solovyov and Ponomarev, and also announced flight plans: a man would fly for eight days, a woman - to three.  
On June 5, the launch vehicle rocket from ship Vostok No. 7 did not take place, as the wind speed at the Earth's surface exceeded 15 m / s. June 6, the export also did not take place - due to the failure of the command radio link system. Only on June 9, the rocket-space complex was brought to the launch site in the expectation of launching the Vostok-5 spacecraft on June 11. However, on June 10, late in the evening, M. Kel'dysh phoned from Moscow to the test site and reported that solar activity had increased dramatically and very powerful solar flares could occur in the coming days. Scientists expressed the opinion that the cosmonaut's dose would exceed 50 rents and would be too dangerous. The launch was postponed to June 12, then another day. Only on June 13 it was decided to launch the Vostok-5 on June 14 at 14:00 local time, that is, at noon Moscow time.  
June 14, 2 hours and 15 minutes before the start, Valery Bykovsky took his place in the ship. When checking the systems, it turned out that both VHF radio transmitters of the ship are not working. Nevertheless, it was decided to fly, since there were three more shortwave communication transmitters at the disposal of the astronaut. When 40-minute readiness was announced, a violation was found in the preparation of the ejection seat. During the pre-start preparation, an employee of the plant No918 was unable to pull out the halyard with a safety check and simply cut it off. It turned out that with a cut-off check, the astronaut's bailout is almost impossible. The main designer of spacesuits and catapults S.M. Alekseev made a decision: to open the hatch of the ship, to make the combing of the catapult and to remove a piece of halyard under the chair with V. Bykovsky sitting in it. This caused a delay of half an hour.  
By the 5-minute readiness - already by the new start time - it turned out that the third stage HIR horizon had failed. We decided to delay the start for another 2–3 hours and take a new risk: replace the device on a charged rocket with an astronaut sitting in it. There was no other way out, since after 17 hours the landing conditions on day 8 were sharply worsened, and moving to a later date would have resulted in fuel discharge, removal of the launch vehicle from the start and sending it to the factory for testing. manufacturer.  
The launch of Vostok-5 with Valery Bykovsky on board took place on June 14, 1963 around 5 p.m. local time, with a delay of 3 hours.  
When the ship went into orbit, it became clear that its height is much lower than the estimated height. Guaranteed time  
The name of the ship’s existence was only 10–11 days, but this is calculated. In reality, it could turn out that already on the 8th day the ship spontaneously “closes” into the atmosphere and makes a controlled descent. There appeared a serious probability that a seven-day flight would be impossible.  
Meanwhile, Valery Bykovsky quickly adapted to weightlessness. He was even able to observe the third stage of the launch vehicle, flying a parallel course. But when the astronaut unbuckled and swam to the window, he saw the ship's antenna. The announcement of this caused some confusion on Earth .

At the 4th stage, according to the already established tradition, Bykovsky spoke with the Soviet leader N.S. Khrushchev, who said: “I congratulate you, Valery Fedorovich, on a successful flight. We are sure that you will complete the flight program. We are waiting for you on our Soviet land. The Soviet people will meet you as expected. See you soon!"  
The cosmonaut's well-being during the entire flight remained good. At the fifth turn, it could be watched on television.  
During the flight, Bykovsky normally drank, ate, slept, and on the third day of the flight after a dose of laxative he took advantage of a sewage disposal device (ACS). Valery Fedorovich recalls: “I transmitted another message in which I said that I had a space chair. Due to radio interference, the radio operator at the control point took the word “chair” - “knock” instead. There was a commotion at the command post. Questions such as “what happened to the ship, what stumbled, what kind of knock: slithering, hissing, scraping, etc.?” Poured in. It was necessary to clarify that there was a space chair, or, quite simply, I used a sewage disposal device. In response, I heard a friendly laugh ... "

During the entire flight, VF Bykovsky conducted observations of the Earth, the Sun, stars. He took control of the ship several times on himself and successfully targeted the “boarding” controls. Bykovsky spent some time steering by the stars,  
The flight’s scientific experiments, in particular, were the first to observe the growth of pea, experimented with an air bubble in a test tube with liquid. He filmed the Earth, the Moon, the horizon on a black and white film. Unfortunately, the cassettes in the movie camera stuck, and one turned out to be completely unloaded. He also regularly conducted television sessions.  
Meanwhile, Tereshkova, Solovyov and Ponomareva continued to prepare for the start. On June 15, Leonid Brezhnev (then he was Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Council) recommended the State Commission to present girls to the press as civilians. It was necessary to urgently change the prelaunch conference of all three astronauts ...  
According to the ballistic data on the ship Vostok-5, it was decided to launch the launch of Vostok-6 on June 16 at 12:30 pm Moscow time. All the preparation of the rocket carrier and the spacecraft, as well as the launch of Vostok-6, unlike Vostok-5, passed without hesitation and no delays.

The spacecraft Vostok-6 entered the calculated orbit. According to the reports of the first cosmonaut woman, her state of health was good, all the systems of the ship worked normally. Radio communication with both the Earth and Valery Bykovsky was maintained steadily. I just did not succeed in seeing the astronauts of each other ... During the flight, Valentina Tereshkova filmed the Earth and the Moon. She did not conduct biological experiments, since she could not get objects out of laying.  
On the second day, June 17, the flight managers drew attention to the not always clear, evasive answers to questions. This alarmed and raised doubts about her vigorous reports of well-being.  
Subsequently, Valentina Vladimirna in the report of the State Commission noted that she practically did not feel the spacesuit for the first day. On the second day, aching pains appeared in the right leg, which did not pass until the end of the second day. Her helmet interfered and pressed on the shoulders. There was an itch and pain under the sensor on her head. Despite everything, according to Tereshkova, her state of health was good throughout the entire flight, but once she was sick. She blamed not vestibular disorders, but poor quality of food. The Tereshkova logbook did not lead, since both pencils broke. Radio communication with the “Hawk” Tereshkova maintained until the second day, and even sang songs to him. Then, due to the divergence of the ships in orbits, there was no radio communication between the astronauts.

On June 18, due to a sharp decrease in the orbit of Vostok-5, due to the solar activity, the State Commission decided: to put the Hawk on 82nd orbit, i.e. by the fifth day; "Seagull" planted on the 49th circuit. On this day, Tereshkova should have tried out the manual control, but from the first time she failed to perform the orientation of the ship to the “boarding” one. This caused a lot of stress on Earth, because if the automatic system fails, the return of the ship will become impossible. But at the 45th orbit of B.V. Rauschenbakh and the flying cosmonauts conducted a briefing with Tereshkova - and on the morning of June 19, a few hours before the landing, the manual orientation of the ship was nevertheless performed. For 15 minutes, it supported the necessary orientation of the ship, which she gladly reported to Earth. Valentina explained her failure by the fact that it was difficult to work with the console. She did not reach for the Globus and other devices, and had to be untied from the chair.  
The first, as planned, returned the Vostok-6 ship to Earth. On June 19, at 09:39:40, a command was issued on board to turn on the automatic landing cycle. The team “passed through” - but there was no Tereshkova report on this, as well as on building orientations, on switching on and off the TDU, and on other stages of the descent. Serious excitement arose on Earth - after all, no one knew that with the ship and the astronaut ...  
Valentina Vladimirovna recalled that when the CA cover was burning, flakes flew past the porthole, and the cabin was filled with smoke. The bailout passed gently - and Tereshkova sank to the ground 400 meters from the SA. Due to the inability to control the parachute, Valentine landed her back and hit her face strongly against the helmet of the spacesuit. The result is a broken nose and a bruise under the eye. The run-in people helped Tereshkova to take off her spacesuit, and she, as a sign of gratitude, presented them with samples of onboard food. And they, in turn, fed her potatoes and onions and gave her koumiss to drink. It was discouraged - but the euphoria of returning from space made her forget the instructions. And there was no information about what is happening with Vostok-6!

On Earth, the tension was increasing. Only two hours after landing, it turned out that Tereshkova landed normally, but the landing site turned out to be 2 ° further than the calculated one. An hour later, she was discovered by a search service aircraft, from where two parachutes descended. Three hours later, V. Tereshkova was able to report personally to Khrushchev on the successful completion of the flight.  
As it turned out later, instead of oral reports Tereshkova transmitted information about the orientation of the ship, turning the remote control on and off and descending through Morse code “on the key”, but no one received these signals. Everyone was waiting for an oral report on other frequencies.  
On the same day, the landing command was issued to the Vostok-5 ship. Everything went smoothly, the engine worked for a delay of 39 seconds. After that, the ship rotated erratically until the separation of compartments. The bailout went well. Bykovsky landed in the Kazakh steppe between the two villages.  
Soon the rider approached him, then the people in the car. While he was shooting a spacesuit, more than 100 people had gathered. Search aircrafts An􏰀2 and Il появились14 appeared in the sky, but Bykovsky failed to contact them: people were in the way. Then, on the Volga, he was taken to a descent vehicle, which landed 1.5–2 km. From there, Bykovsky was evacuated to Kostanay, where he spent the night. Later it turned out that his flight of the estimated landing site also amounted to about 2 °.  
On the morning of June 20, Bykovsky and Tereshkova were taken to Kuybyshev to Obkomovskiye Dacha for a post-flight report, medical examination and rehabilitation. Moscow met the heroes on June 22. Thus ended the world's first woman’s flight into space and the longest manned space flight for that time.


	14. Project Mercury:the beginning of the project

The history of the United States civil manned space program is divided into two major phases. One of them covers the period up to 1975 and includes the first flights into space within the framework of the Mercury project, testing of the meeting and docking in orbit in the Gemini project, lunar expeditions on the Apollo ships, and operation of the first American orbital station. Skylab stations and Apollon Soyuz joint flight with the USSR. The second stage is the development and operation of the Space Shuttle reusable space transport system and the construction with its help of the International Space Station.  
It is said that the main engine of the Mercury project was the desire to compensate for the First Satellite and to make a manned space flight earlier than the Soviet Union would. It would be more correct to say that for both countries man’s entry into orbit was a natural and necessary step in space exploration — a step to which each went its own way.

The appearance of the first American manned spacecraft was mainly formed from spring to autumn 1958. The project’s background history is viewed from February – March 1956, when, on the initiative of General Thomas Power, the head of the Air Force’s Air Force Research and Development Command The United States began research work on a manned ballistic missile. With its help, it would be possible to deliver people and cargo to any region of the Earth, as well as launch a manned satellite. The industry, in particular, Avco, which was engaged in the head parts of ballistic missiles, the large aviation company McDonnell, as well as theorists and government experimenters,who worked for the NACA Aviation Agency, which tested high-speed aircraft.  
Since 1957, as an initiative, they had been developing different variants of winged and wingless (ballistic) spacecraft.  
Before the launch of the Soviet First Satellite, these studies had a very low priority, and the United States Air Force gave a clear preference to the X-15 rocket plane, the logical development of which was an orbital plane. However, by the beginning of 1958, the United States, even in the drawings, did not have a rocket carrier (RN) capable, in one and a half to two years, to launch a sub-plane based on X-15 into orbit. The carrier of the nearest future could be launched only by a small ship performing a ballistic descent from orbit.

Therefore, at a closed conference held on March 10–12, 1958 in the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division in Los Angeles, it was considered as the basic version with a ballistic cone-shaped capsule (diameter – 1.8m, length – 2.4 m, mass - from 1225 to 1360 kg), launched by Atlas class cancer and designed for automatic flight for a duration of up to two days. In this version it is not difficult to see the features of the future “Mercury”. An agreement was being prepared between the US Air Force and NACA on the joint development of the project, but at that time President Duis Eisenhower decided to move the military away from the project. On August 18, his decision to start a project of a piloted ballistic ship launched in the United States Air Force was given civilian status, and its implementation was entrusted to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 2 created on October 1, 1958 based on NACA.  
The basis for the project “Mercury” 3 served as the results obtained  
Air Force and industrial firms, as well as studies conducted in the laboratories of the aerospace agency itself. In particular, the emergency rescue system and the Little Joe (Little Joe) solid-propellant rocket were developed in NACA.  
Under the conditions of the organizational confusion of the summer of 1958, the development of a capsule project under the leadership of Maxim Fazhe successfully advanced, and already on October 7, a week after the beginning of NASA work, it was accepted for implementation. The technical task was sent to industrial firms on November 17. The competition was won by the firm McDonnell Aircraft Corp. On February 6, 1959, a contract was signed with her for the design and manufacture of 12 flight ships “capable of withstanding any known combination of acceleration, heating, and aerodynamic loads that may occur during launch or entry into the atmosphere” Company founder James McDonnell personally oversaw this development. For his specialists, the development of the crew cabin, capsule control, and astronaut life support equipment was a natural continuation of work on jet-powered aircraft.

January 25, 1960, the first flight of the Merkuriy was handed over to the customer.  
The situation was worse with a rocket-carrier. For the orbital launches of the Mercury capsule, it was decided to use the modified Atlas-D intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). But it was not until April 14, 1959 that the first launch of this ICBM took place and ended in an accident. And although nine Atlas D modified missiles were ordered by the United States Air Force on December 8, 1958, it was impossible to wait for their readiness. An intermediate carrier was needed for test launches — even if it could not bring the capsule into orbit.  
Thus, the project leaders returned to the idea of suborbital flights on a Redstone ballistic rocket, which Werner von Braun, who works in the US Army, advanced as early as April 1958. 


	15. Project Mercury:unmanned test flights

The entire concept of the Mercury project (heat protection tests, determination of the dynamics of entry into the atmosphere, evaluation of the operation of splash systems) was supposed to be checked by launching a capsule model along a ballistic trajectory on an Atlas-D intercontinental ballistic missile (onboard No10D ). This test was called "Big Joe" and took place on September 9, 1959 at Cape Canaveral.  
The start was normal, but the tail section of the rocket with two start engines did not drop. As a result, the fuel of the central engine ended 14 seconds earlier, the gained speed (6,230 m / s) was less than the set speed. However, the tasks were mostly completed. The layout capsule, which detached abnormally, at the entrance to the atmosphere was subjected to increased heating and overloading, but it fell down 18:minutes after the start 2400 km from Cape Canaveral and was rescued.  
On October 4, 1959, the first launch of a Little Joe rocket with a capsule capsule took place at the Wallops test site. During the out-of-plan test of LJ-6, the work of the rocket itself, as well as the command control system and emergency capsule detonation, were tested.  
Exactly one month later, on November 4, a LJ-1A launch took place on Wallops to evaluate the operation of the SAS at maximum velocity head and to work out rescue operations. However, the removal of the capsule using SAS pro-  
seven Redstone missiles modified for the Mercury project.  
In March 1959, NASA compiled a flight test plan that included seven suborbital launches on the Redstone, one suborbital launch on the Atlas D, and eight orbital launches. Each of the six astronauts, the selection of which just ended, had to first fly to the “training-nagging” suborbital flight, and then to the orbit, with the first manned suborbital flight planned for April 26, 1960, and the first orbital flight on September 1, 1960. But life turned out to be more complicated than this beautiful scheme.

A particularly important test of the MA􏰀1 was conducted at Cape Canaveral on July 29, 1960. The No4 serial capsule was installed on the Atlas-D carrier rocket (No50D) for launch along a ballistic trajectory over a distance of 2400 km. It was supposed to check the strength of the capsule and the degree of heating of its tailing part upon entry into the atmosphere with the highest possible thermal loads, as well as to work out the landing and rescue operations.  
The launch tasks were not fulfilled: after 57.6 sec after the start of the velocity head, the adapter tore off the adapter from the carrier. Telemetry with a PH was interrupted at 59 seconds, from the ship at 202 seconds, at the moment when the capsule broke. CAC in this launch was not set. The need to enhance the adapter significantly delayed subsequent launches of the Atlas.  
November 8 is a new failure when checking a flight ship for the SAS at the end of an active area. On 15.4 seconds of flight (launch LJ-5, capsule No3), due to a failure in the circuit, the CAC engines prematurely started. Locks of fastening of the ship did not open, and the bundle of “rocket-capsule” collapsed as it fell into the ocean.  
On November 21 at Cape Canaveral, in the presence of numerous spectators and the press, the first qualifying launch of the MR-1 of the Mercury-Redstone rocket (No1) with the serial capsule No2 took place. The carrier rose only 5 cm above the start when the engine suddenly turned off due to an asynchronous disconnection of the tear-off connectors. The rocket “sat down” with stabilizers on the launching table, and the whole performance turned around in front of the stunned spectators.

According to the cyclogram, after 10 seconds after the shutdown of the LRE, the SAS should have worked. However, the ship did not separate: the condition for separation was not higher than 0.25g, and the overload sensor “honestly” registered the acceleration of free fall. But strictly according to the timer, the SAS farm was shot off!  
Then, at the altimeter command (height below 3000 m!), The parachute system worked, and since the sensors did not feel the load in the main parachute lines, a spare one was also released. Parachutes opened and hung like giant sails - a strong gust of wind could knock down a rocket! Finally, hydrogen peroxide was drained from the tanks of the capsule.  
Fortunately, the carrier resisted, and the next day, after the batteries of the detonation system were discharged, the Redstone was removed from the table. In order to prevent the repetition of such failures, additional grounding of the rocket and prohibition of the cut-off of the PH engine and the separation of the spacecraft at normal pressure in the combustion chamber were introduced.  
The capsule was repaired and re-launched on December 19, 1960 - on booster No3. In the launch with the designation MR-1A, due to the error of the longitudinal integrating accelerometer, the autopilot turned off the Redstone engine for 3 seconds later at a speed of about 79 m / s higher than the calculated one. Ship climbed on 210 km and was in zero gravity for 5 min 30 sec, then issued a braking impulse according to the program and, upon entering the atmosphere, was overloaded by 1g above the calculated one. Flight missions were completed.  
On January 31, 1961, chimpanzee Ham was the first passenger of the Redstone (launch MR-2, rocket No2, capsule No5). It was supposed to obtain data on the physiology and behavior of an animal during a suborbital flight, to test the life support system (LSS), medical equipment and to check the systems for detecting emergency situations, orientations, brake engines, and engine absorbers. Due to the “sticking” of the thrust regulator, the engine was operating at an increased thrust, and the oxidizer was completely consumed 5 seconds before the calculated off time. By the pressure drop in the chamber, the SAS determined the premature stopping of the rocket engine and “tore off” the ship from the rocket. The capsule received an additional powerful “push” (speed search was 328 m / s): after being in weightlessness for 6 minutes and 40 seconds, Ham climbed 253 km instead of 185 km from 6 km from the start, 212 km further than the calculated splitting point.  
When planting, the heat shield hit the body hard, and the capsule began to leak. At the moment of the arrival of the rescuers, the ship with might and main was drawing water through the air valve - Ham was barely able to pull it out.  
According to the results of the launch of MR-2, seven changes were made to the rocket design. The thrust regulator and the speed integrator were modified. In the upper part of Redstone, four stiffeners and additional vibration insulation were added. The tolerances for the operation of the LRE were extended, filters were introduced into the control system, and changes were made in the synchronization of processes. A backup shutdown of the rocket rocket engine was introduced by program-time device at 143 seconds. This was supposed to eliminate the “cast-off” in the MR в1A and MR􏰂2 flights.

The head of the Target Space Group, Robert Gilruth, offered to go on a manned launch, but the team Werner von Braun insisted on another unmanned flight to assess the changes made. This “test” launch under the designation MR-BD was successfully completed on March 24, 1961 from a mock-up capsule launched on the finalized rocket No5. The launch was successful, and the carrier Mercury Redstone was declared ready for a manned flight *.

With the launches of MR-1A, MR-2 and MR-BD, the angular velocities of the heel were approximately twice as high as observed at the combat Redstone, but lower than the destruction limits. After MR􏰂 BD, the sensor of the limiting angular velocity of the roll was removed from the emergency warning system.  
On March 18, the LJ-5A launch was carried out on the Wallops Island with the same tasks as in the unsuccessful test on November 8. “Twenty-five again!” - premature activation of the SAS, non-standard separation of the ship with its own engines. All three parachutes came out at an altitude of 12 km - and the capsule No14 drove almost 24 minutes after launch. Only the third attempt on April 28 was successful, and even too much: because of the failure of one of the eight solid propellant engines, the rocket went low, and the ship with the help of SAS flew at a height of 7.3 km at a speed head almost twice as high. preset! In the launch of the LJ-5B, the capsule No14 was used again, restored after the flight on March 18 The road to the manned “jump” was open.

But back to the launches on the "Atlas D". On February 21, MA􏰂2 (No67D rocket, capsule No6) was launched along a suborbital trajectory to check the strength of the heat shield during heating and overloads under the most difficult conditions of return to the atmosphere and emergency detection system. After the accident MA􏰂1, a temporary strengthening of the upper sections of the oxidizer tank of the rocket was made in the area of the ship's adapter; it was decided to do more thorough work later.  
“Mercury” stayed in weightlessness for 4 min 45 sec. The angle of entry into the dense layers of the atmosphere turned out to be higher than the calculated one, and the heating was also stronger than expected.  
On April 25, in the MA-3 mission, for the first time, an attempt was made to put the “Mercury” into orbit and perform a single turn flight with the check of all the ship's systems, means of landing and evacuation, as well as the network of ground stations. According to the results of previous launches, the necessary changes were made to the rocket design. Capsule No8 contained a “mechanical astronaut” imitating respiration and heat release.

However, there was a failure: the No100D carrier did not perform a programmatic turn on pitch and roll and on 43.3 seconds of flight  
was blown up by the radio command of the ground safety officer. After analyzing the telemetry, a possible cause of failure was established, which later became the classic explanation for both American and  
for all other emergency missions: “foreign particle”. The cause of the accident, MA􏰂3, recognized the “contamination of the contacts of the programmer's control system, which, in combination with the flight factors (vibration and overload), led to an incorrect mechanism triggering”. As a result, there is a modification of the control system to increase its “fault tolerance”.  
This emergency start had its positive side. The effective operation of the ASIS system was demonstrated to detect PH malfunctions and ensure the rescue of the ship — at 40 seconds it turned off the rocket engines and activated the CAC. The capsule was saved and reused in flight MA􏰂4.

On September 13, with a delay of a week (comments on the control system during ground-based verification), the first successful launch of MA􏰂4 into near-earth orbit took place. RN "Atlas􏰂D" No88D worked satisfactorily. On board the Mercury (capsule No8) was again the “mechanical astronaut”. After a single turn of flight, the capsule descended from orbit and successfully splashed down 259 km east of the Bermuda Islands.  
To check the means of the command-and-measuring complex, on November 1 MS􏰂1 (Mercury Scout 1) was launched. A light solid fuel rocket launcher “Blue Scout II” (Blue Scout II NoD-8) was supposed to launch a satellite with radioelectronic equipment similar to that installed on Mercury into orbit at an altitude of 550 km. Due to an error in the assembly of the control system, the carrier lost its stability and was undermined on the 43rd second of the flight ... The Earth was checked in the flights of regular ships.

November 29, the launch of MA􏰂5. Having worked without comment, "Atlas􏰂D" No93D launched No9 capsule into orbit. The passenger was a chimp Enos. It was planned to perform a “test” three-turn flight to verify the operation of the ship's LSS. Telemetry showed overheating of the inverter and malfunctions in the ship roll orientation system, after which the command was given to return after two turns. The ship successfully splashed down 410 km southeast of the Bermuda Islands; the monkey remained alive and unharmed.  
According to the results of MA-5, it was decided to conduct the first manned orbital flight, to which John Glenn was prepared.


	16. Project Mercury:a technical description

The purpose of the creation of Mercury was to study the ability of a person to make space flights and control the movement of a spacecraft (CC). In essence, it was a pressurized cabin of small dimensions with a pilot and equipment inside, and from the very beginning it was called a “capsule” in the American press.  
An astronaut in a spacesuit, sitting in a profiled chair, could briefly withstand an overload of up to 20 units. To the right of the chair there is a ship control handle in space, in front of it is an instrument panel and a periscope eyepiece for observing the Earth.  
The periscope indicator also served for navigation: by moving the handle with four indicators that measure the diameter of the part of the Earth visible on the screen, information on the height of flight could be obtained on a calibrated disk.  
On the left side of the dashboard there is a panel for selecting the mode and orientation contours of the spacecraft, buttons for activating brake rocket engines and the emergency rescue system (CAC). In the middle part of the instrument panel there was a combined indicator of spatial position, showing the speed of rotation of the spacecraft relative to the center of mass and the angles of pitch, yaw and roll. Direct - two handles for pressure relief in the cabin in case of fire.

In orbital flights, astronauts used the automatic machine of reckoning of the path located on the left side of the board. Like the Globus instrument installed onboard the Soviet Vostok, this pointer represented a model of the globe, on which the current position of the ship was displayed and it was possible to determine the area where the landing would occur. To the right of it stood the clock, which indicated Greenwich Mean Time, the time from the moment of launch, and the time remaining until the brake motors were turned on.  
The right side of the board was occupied by indicators of pressure and temperature in the cabin, as well as partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide. At the right edge of the board there was a group of warning lamps — indicators of faults, as well as automatic circuit breakers for the main circuits. Under them is the electrical panel and the radio control panel.  
In order to maximize the dissipation of heat upon entry into the atmosphere, the shape of the capsule was chosen — a truncated cone, which passes by tapering into a cylinder. The maximum diameter of the cone was 1.89 m, the height of the capsule was 2.92 m, and together with the brake propulsion system (TDU) and the CAC it was 7.91 m.).  
The base of the cone was covered by a heat shield: for ballistic flights, beryllium, working for radiation; with orbital - ablative, from glass fiber and rubber.  
The shell of the capsule had an inner hermetic and outer heat shield, bolted together. The sealing was made of two concentric titanium layers, joined by welding. The outer skin, made of a nickel-cobalt alloy with thermal insulation made of ceramic fiber, was bent to increase rigidity. The complex interior of the shell could “breathe” - it would shrink when cooled and expand during heating without losing its shape and tightness.

At the request of the astronauts, a porthole was attached to the cockpit wall, allowing the horizon to be seen behind the ship during orbital flight3.  
The capsule had two manholes - the side, used for landing, and the upper, emergency one. To get out through it, the astronaut had to push out a reserve parachute.  
The air conditioning system had two circuits - cabins and a spacesuit. The cabin atmosphere consisted of pure oxygen at a pressure of 0.35 kg / cm2 and was purified with activated charcoal. Carbon dioxide was removed with lithium hydroxide. There was a desiccant behind the heat exchanger that regulates the temperature of the oxygen entering the cabin, a periodically pressed vinyl sponge; The water was collected in a condensation tank and used in an evaporator that removed heat from the cabin.  
The ship did not have a complete sanitation system: the urinal was used only in orbital flights, and a special diet protected the astronaut from more serious problems.  
When entering the orbit, the capsule was separated from the PH by releasing the clamping ring of fastening and turning on three special solid propellant rocket motors located in the TDU bundle. An automatic system consisting of five gyroscopes, an accelerometer, an analog computer and 18 engines operating on hydrogen peroxide was responsible for the stabilization and orientation of the capsule.  
The system had two circuits (12 engines in one, 6 in the other) and four modes of operation: automatic (autopilot), manual (arm movements were mechanically transferred to proportional valves of engines) and two electric circuits. tantal regimes (movements of the astronaut's hand are converted into control electrical signals) with different control laws. Radio telephone communication was conducted in the HF and VHF bands.

The power supply of the ship's systems — six silver-zinc batteries — was connected to equipment with an electrical wiring 11 km long.  
The descent from the orbit (ballistic, maximum overload of 9 units) proceeded as follows. Braking was provided by the TDU unit, fixed in the center of the windscreen heat shield with metal tapes. Three RTDs were switched on sequentially at 5-second intervals and worked for 10 seconds each. During this period, the stabilization of the capsule was carried out by twisting using the most powerful LREs. Next, the TDU was dropped. Theoretically, the ship could go out of orbit even when one brake motor was triggered.  
After braking in the atmosphere, when the speed of the capsule became lower than the speed of sound, the braking parachute opened, and at a height of 3 km it was the main one, ensuring that the speed of descent was 9 m / s. Reserve parasite was introduced in case of failure of the main one. After the parachute opened, the heat shield was separated, and a landing damper made of rubberized fabric was placed between it and the bottom of the cabin, and various means were also used to detect the landing place of the capsule (acoustic signaling device “Sofar” , flashing light, color marker, radio beacon, etc.).  
In case of an accident at the start or during launching, the ship was equipped with an emergency rescue system. The propulsion system with a solid propellant rocket motor was installed above the spacecraft on the assembly farm. The thrust vector was shifted relative to the center of mass in order to ensure that the ship was taken up and away from the accident. During normal flight, the SAS was dropped after leaving the dense layers of the atmosphere.


	17. MR-3: The first "jump" into space

The first manned suborbital flight in the program was abbreviated MR-3 (Mercury Redstone 3). The ship with serial number 7 was purposefully prepared for it from the summer of 1960 at the McDonnell plant in St. Louis, and on December 9 it was delivered to Cape Canaveral for preliminary preparation. On January 19, 1961, Robert Gilruth, head of the Target Space Group, summoned seven astronauts and told them that Alan Shepard was the first to fly, Virgil Grissom was the second to fly, and John Glenn would duplicate both. These three names were called the press a month later, but who exactly will fly - until May 2 was a mystery.  
The rocket with serial number 7 was delivered to Cape Canaveral on March 30 and installed at the start of April. When he learned that he was to fly on ship No7 and rocket No7, Alan gave his capsule a proper name, Freedom 7:seven in honor of the rocket, ship and families of the astronauts, well, "freedom" - for ideological reasons.  
Shepard and Glenn escorted the ship, worked out with the testers in the orientation system, tested the LSS capsules in the pressure chamber, worked out the flight plan in simulators. On April 18–20, Alan Shepard was practicing landing on the ship at the start and “flight”, and on April 28 a trial pre-launch was held. The launch was scheduled for May 2 with the following tasks:  
◆ Familiarization of the pilot with the conditions of a space flight, including launch, launch, zero gravity, braking, landing;  
◆ Assessment of a person as a functional component of the ship-pilot system in manual orientation mode during passive flight, during and after braking; radio contact with the pilot; assessment of a person's ability to perform the functions of a qualified observer;  
◆ Study of human physiological reactions to flight conditions;  
◆ Development of rescue operations (pilot and ship).

The start-up was prepared on the morning of May 2, in the hope that the thunderstorm would subside and rain would fall over Canaveral, and the squall wind in the area of splashdown would settle. About one o'clock in the morning, lieutenant colonel William Douglas woke Shepard, Grissom and Glenn. The astronaut had breakfast, and they put on a Shefard suit. He sat on the first floor of the S hangar and waited for the team to leave for the start. But the weather did not improve, the start was canceled, and a few dozen correspondents crowded in front of the building did not wait for the ascent. Thus was born the American tradition: from the the team shouted in unison: “Happy landing, commander!”, and the hatch was closed behind Alan. The start was postponed several times,ultimately to May 5: first, the running clouds threatened to disrupt filming, then the inverter overheated on the rocket, which had to be replaced. Under the curtain, I had to bleed off the excess pressure in the oxygen tank. Nobody expected that the astronaut would have to sit in the ship for 4 hours, no one thought about the problem, sorry, toilets, and the first American astronaut had to be poured into his pants. In total, the launch was delayed for more than 2 hours, and yet all reached the “zero” mark.  
The start took place at 09:34:13 EST (14:34:13 UTC). At that time, classes in schools and work in institutions were stopped, and street traffic ceased. A live television report from Cape Canaveral watched from 45 to 70 million TV viewers — in a word, all of America.  
The flight was planned so short that it had to be written per second, and even in a very “terrific” presentation it is striking in its richness.  
The first 142 seconds - removal. From the 45th second she began to shake, Shepard did not see the instrument readings well, but did not report this, he was afraid to frighten the Earth. The engine cut-off took place half a second earlier than scheduled at an altitude of 59.7 km. The emergency rescue system farm was shot off, and after 10 seconds three separation rockets fired. The ship flew at an angle of 40 ° to the horizon at a speed of 1955 m / s, automatically turning the "tail" forward and slightly upwards. This orientation was supposed to be kept in orbital flight; also planned and suborbital.  
In T + 03: 10 (this time from the start in minutes and seconds), when the turn ended, Alan Shepard switched on the manual proportional control mode and took the handle. Attention: for the first time in the history of astronautics, the pilot of a spacecraft began to control it! The Mercury ship, like the Soviet “Vostok”, could fly completely in automatic mode. However, the Americans in the first flight laid the main operations on the pilot.

At first, Shepard lowered the spacecraft’s nose to 􏰀34 ° and again raised to 􏰀14 °, describing his actions in short phrases. Then he successively tried to deflect the nose to the left and left and rotate the capsule around the longitudinal axis. The next item was manual control with control over the shape of the Earth through the periscope. But the open perspective, from the color of the ocean and the islands of Shepard, simply captured the spirit! “What a beautiful view!” He exclaimed unwittingly ... and returned to the task. Turn on 􏰀20 ° yaw, back - it turns out! Shepard led the pitch angle to 􏰀34 ° and switched on the braking mode from the console. In apogee trajectory, at an altitude of 187.4 km,  
in T + 05: 11, three brake motors sequentially worked. During braking — and it lasted 22 seconds and reduced speed by 155 m / s — the astronaut maintained the orientation of the capsule manually, parrying the disturbances. Of course, the ship would have landed without braking, but the maneuver was designed for orbital flight.  
Before entering the atmosphere, Alan tried another control mode, the electronic remote control: the movements of the knobs were transmitted not through a system of levers, but through electrical circuits. He forgot to disconnect the manual control toggle switch, and two sets of motors operated simultaneously from the handle.

At T + 06: 14, a pyrotechnic bolt was automatically suspended, fixing the brake remote control to the spacecraft, but the green light on the instrument board did not light up until Alan gave the duplicate command from the remote control manually. Immediately after that, he lowered the “tail” of the capsule 40 ° down to enter the atmosphere in a minute at the right angle. During this minute, the astronaut checked the short-wave communication channel (did not work) and, with closed eyes, conducted exercises to assess the coordination of movements.  
At T + 07: 48 at an altitude of about 70 km, the state of weightlessness ended - it lasted only 5 minutes and 04 seconds, excluding the time for issuing the brake name  
pulse. The astronaut made several more movements with the handle, ending them by twisting the capsule counterclockwise at a speed of 2 rpm. The overload quickly came on, reached 11 g, lasted 4 seconds and just as quickly fell to tolerable. During intensive braking, the temperature in the capsule increased from 35 to 39 ° C, and in pilot's suit from 22 to 24 ° C. The capsule shell is heated to 665 ° C.  
Landing was in full compliance with the plan. At T + 10:15, at a height of 3.2 km, the main 19-meter parachute opened in two stages, which reduced the vertical speed to 10 m / s. The capsule "Freedom􏰀7" splashed down after 15 min 22 sec after launch, at 09:49:35 EST, 130 km to the east-north-east of Grand Bagam Island and 487.3 km from the launch complex at Cape Canaveral, with a flight of 11 km from the calculated point.  
At 09:53 EST, the rescue helicopter of the 26th Airborne Group of the Marine Corps, commanded by Lieutenant Wayne Kunz, hung over the capsule, and co-pilot George Cox caught her with a hook and raised it above the water. Stepping out of the chair and opening the hatch, Shepard left Freedom 7 and was pulled into a helicopter on a cable. At 09:59, the helicopter placed the capsule and landed the astronaut on the deck of the Lake Champlain ship.


	18. MR-4: a ship that drowned

The paradox of cosmic history: Gus Grissom’s 15-minute flight lasted for exactly 38 years.  
Grissom's ship had the factory number 11 and the name “Liberty Bell-7”, the carrier was number 8, and the flight was designated as MR-4 (Mercury Redstone 4).  
Outwardly, the “eleventh” ship differed from the “seventh” in two main details. At the insistence of the astronauts, they placed a large window in the form of a trapezoid with the sizes of 0.48, 0.28 and 0.19 m (Shepard used only the periscope and two lateral 25-centimeter round portholes). The manhole was also light - only 10.4 kg - the entrance hatch on the pyrobolts,which could be opened or closed easily. They introduced the pilot's console and introduced another control mode — speed, in which the deviations of the handle set not the magnitude of the turn, but its angular velocity. Finally, they made an important change to the spacesuit: they added a urinal.

The launch took place again at the second attempt. On July 19, he was “beaten off” at the level of T􏰀10 min due to bad weather. The start was given on July 21, 1961 at 07:20:36 EST (12:20:36 UTC) after three delays of various reasons for a total of 80 minutes. The flight almost exactly repeated the Shepardian one; the maximum height reached was 190.32 km.  
Alan Shepard was so overloaded in his five minutes of weightless flight that the task of Grissom was specially facilitated: part of the maneuvers was replaced by the observation of the Earth and the identification of reference points. The amazing view outside the window so fascinated Gus that he did not have time to make the third turn in the manual control mode. After that, he turned the nose of the capsule to the left by 45 ° so that for 3 minutes to observe the Earth, and barely managed to restore the orientation for braking - just 9 seconds before turning on this mode.  
After braking, Gus tested the angular velocity control mode and described in detail how Cape Canaveral and its surroundings look like from a distance of 240 km. The entrance to the atmosphere occurred at T + 07: 46; descent passed without comment.  
The capsule splashed down in the Atlantic at T + 15: 37 at 486.2 km from the starting point (with a flight 15 km), 10 km from the aircraft carrier Randolph. The ship dived with its nose and left side; in the porthole the pilot saw only water. He waited for his nose to rise a lot, shot off a reserve parachute, and the capsule quickly straightened. The astronaut freed himself from the seat belts, disconnected the sensor leads, undressed the oxygen hose from the helmet, and the helmet from the spacesuit, but left it on his head to be in contact, and with difficulty pulled the rubber seal around the neck - in case you had to to be in the water. Then he released the mounting of the side hatch, removed the safety cover of the hatch button, located 15–20 cm from his right hand, and took out the checklist.

In T + 25: 20, Grissom asked the helicopter to come up and prepare to lift him aboard. In anticipation of the pilot was lying in the chair, thinking about how to save a knife from a friend as a souvenir. Suddenly, the pyrobolts charged, the side hatch flew off, and Gus saw the waves start to flow over the threshold. How nice that he prepared to leave in advance! Having dropped the helmet, the astronaut pushed his hand away from the right edge of the instrument board and literally flew through the hatch into the waves of the ocean.  
One helicopter miraculously managed to pick up the sinking capsule and moved aside, dragging it across the water, while the other two took up Grissom, interfering with each other. At that moment, the astronaut noticed that the waves began to cover him with his head, and realized that water flows through the oxygen valve left open. He then remembered that there were souvenirs in the left leg of the spacesuit — as many as 100 dimes, three dollars and several ship models ... extra weight ... Grissom began to wave his hands (“Rather pick me up!”) the nearest helicopter was understood to be exactly the opposite (“I am fine”). The “swim” lasted 3–4 minutes, and the third helicopter managed to catch up with Grissom for some seconds before he had to go to the bottom ...  
Grissom was saved; in 1965, he was the commander of the “Gemini-3” and, most likely, would have become the first man on the Moon if he had not died in the fire of the ship “Apollo-1” in January 1967. But his first ship could not be pulled out: the helicopter helicopter detected a drop in oil pressure and overheating of the engine and had to dump the load. The capsule sank at a depth of 4890 m and was forgotten for many years.

So she would have remained at the bottom of the Atlantic, if not a specialist in distance - Kurt Newport. In 1985, he “fell ill” with the idea of finding and raising the ship of Grissom. After examining the documents and interviewing participants in search and rescue missions on July 21, 1961, Newport in March 1992 made a successive shooting at the bottom of the so-called. the Blake Basin is an object that could have been the ship of Grissom. In September 1993, he tried to explore the bottom with the remote-controlled Magellan 725, but only enough money for one dive, which was unsuccessful.  
In 1999, the Discovery cable channel was attracted to the financing of the project, and on April 19 the expedition went to sea. New survey found at the bottom of 88 objects. The first of them - number 71 - on May 1 was lowered by the Magellan 725. They walked without a sonar, which, fortunately, went astray, only in the picture from the cameras, but Newport was extremely lucky. Within a few minutes from the start of the search, a high triangular shadow appeared from the darkness. The robot got closer and lit it with headlights - this was Grissom's ship! Later, Newport described his impressions like this: “It cannot be ... I am not so successful! My eyes tell me: yes, yes, yes, and the brain convinces: no, no, no ... "  
To lift the legendary capsule was removed in July 19, 20 July, 1999, and on July 21, on the anniversary of the start of Grissom, she was taken to Port Canaveral. The ship is now on display at the Kansas Cosmosphere Museum in the city of Hutchinson, Kansas.


	19. MA-6: First American in orbit

After Grissom's suborbital “jump”, two ready-made Redstone rocket remained, plus one that refused to fly away on November 21, 1960 and could be restored. Thus, it was possible to carry out three more suborbital flights: MR-5, MR-6 and MR-7. At the end of July, the third suborbital flight of MR-5 was also planned. Pilot was supposed to be John Glenn - Shepard and Grissom's double, 40-year-old Lieutenant Colonel of the Marine Corps, an excellent pilot, participant of the war with Japan, an exemplary Protestant, a purposeful, politically literate man. In the spring, he led himself so that the journalists were sure that it was Glenn, not Shepard, who would have the first “jump” into space. Later he ironically recalled his understudy: “It's the same as being a witness at a wedding twice and never becoming a bride.” He didn’t want to be a witness at all, and he lobbied the abolition of MR-5 in favor of the three-turn MA-6. John wanted to become the first American in orbit, to achieve more than Yuri Gagarin, and in this his aspirations coincided with the sentiments of the leaders of NASA.  
The daily flight of German Titov on August 6–7, 1961 buried the hope of getting ahead, and at the same time the flight of MR-5. And although on Sunday, August 13, the ship No15 intended for him was brought to Cape Canaveral, on August 18 it was announced that there would be no flight of MR􏰀5.

On November 29, the director of the Mercury project, Robert Gilruth, announced that John Glenn had been appointed as pilot of MA􏰀6, and Scott Carpenter was appointed as his backup. The second orbital flight was assigned to Donald Slayton (doubler - Walter Schirra).  
NASA really wanted John Glenn to start in 1961, and for a while the launch was planned for December 28th. But if the ship No13 was being prepared for launch from August 27, the No109D rocket was launched by the Convair Astronautics plant in Sorrento only on November 19. On November 30, she was flown to Florida by a C-133B aircraft. Start of John Glenn took place, according to tradition, on the second attempt. But so much was the attention of Americans to this flight, so languishing from waiting. They were starting a run and only for the tenth time - it turned out! It seemed that Glenn alone remained calm: in the mornings he ran two miles along the deserted shore, studied the flight plan during the day, sat on a special plan and was subjected to all the “tortures” that the medicine had come up with for him: numerous analyzes, studies of the inner ear and vestibular apparatus.

The first attempt to start was 27 January. Glenn sat in the ship for five hours - the weather interfered. Catching the gaps in the clouds, the prelaunch countdown was brought to T-13 min, but were forced to surrender. “We are canceling the launch, John,” the astronaut heard. “Received. Okay, another day will come. ”  
In early February, Glenn traveled to a family in Arlington, worked at the Langley Center on a simulator simulating capsule rotation under the influence of orientation motors, and ... met at the White House with President Kennedy. (Ay, yes, Lieutenant Colonel, who has not even risen to space yet!)

It is morning on February 20th. At 02:20 Glenn's local time, doctor Bill Douglas woke him up. The four of us had breakfast: Doug las, Glenn, Carpenter and Shepard. Scott left for the start to be the first to prepare the capsule, and John after the medical examination, sticking the gauges and putting on the spacesuit. At 06:03 the astronaut took a seat in the cockpit. They began to close the hatch - and the story with Gagarin repeated. One of the 70 bolts was broken, they had to open and close the door again.  
It only took 40 minutes, and the entire launch was delayed by 2 hours and 17 minutes, because the rocket first had to replace the radar receiver and the pump valve on the liquid oxygen line at the end. The weather was disturbing, but at half past eight in the morning, the clouds dispersed.  
At 9 o'clock, a direct TV broadcast began, and at 09:47, millions of Americans heard the American “Come on!” - “We are on the way!” Heard over the radios at Cape Canaveral.  
After 301.4 seconds, with an overload of 7.7g, the main engine of the Atlas was cut off. The turnaround of the capsule compartment worked, weightlessness began. "Friendship" 7 went into orbit. “You have at least seven turns,” Alan Shepard relayed from Canaveral; This meant that the orbit was calculated. After several minutes, its parameters became known: inclination — 33.54 °, height — from 157.2 to 255.6 km, orbital period — 88 min 29 sec.

While the automatics turned the ship forward with its tail, Glenn conveyed that the Atlas was tumbling back a hundred yards behind. Fly up to Africa, John was able to enjoy the glittering horizon and clear coastline, to see the dust storm over the Sahara. And already 25 minutes after the launch, he took control to turn the ship 60 ° to the right. Above the Indian Ocean, he entered the shadow and reported: "I see stars above myself, but I cannot yet identify the constellations." The sky was completely black, the earth was slightly illuminated by the moon, and a layer of haze was visible above the horizon.  
On the 55th minute of the flight, Glenn reported that he could see Perth’s lights perfectly. The inhabitants of this Australian city tried: greeting the astronaut, they turned on all the lights and even covered the grass with white sheets.  
At 73 minutes, Glenn tried to eat apple mousse. No problems — neither with swallowing food, nor with feeling (however, weightlessness did not disturb him until the end of the flight). 

At this moment the sun rose, and the asronaut, with noticeable excitement, saw that it was surrounded by thousands of small  
luminous particles that move with the ship, spinning and lagging behind: "I have never seen anything like this." Later it turned out that the yellowish-green “Glenn sparkles” are frozen ice pieces, a product of the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide in orientation engines.  
When entering the radio visibility zone of Point Arguello Station, the astronaut reported that the machine stopped its orientation and had to switch to manual control. John switched from one control mode to another and almost until the end of the flight supported the “Friendship” orientation manually, and he deployed the ship three times through 180 °. This problem was the first, but not the only one.  
At the 96th minute of the flight, a communication session with President Kennedy broke down, and at the same time, the MCC saw a disturbing signal via telemetry: the “segment 51” parameter indicated that the inflatable landing absorber and the heat shield were not fixed. And this meant that after braking and removing the TDU, the screen would fall off the ship - and the Mercury would burn in the atmosphere. If, of course, the sensor does not lie ...  
Glenn made the second orbit, the ground stations “passed” him to each other almost without interruptions: Canaveral, Bermuda, floating NPC in the Atlantic, Kano, Zanzibar, a ship in the Indian Ocean (all three turns above him were a thunderstorm, and the astronaut saw it) , Muchea, Woomera, Canton, Hawaii, Point Arguello, White Sands, Corpus Christi. John performed scheduled turns and checked the orientation in the shadows, watched the sunset and sunrise and individual ground targets, monitored well-being, checked visual acuity and coordination of movements, performed exercises with an expander.

By the beginning of the third turn, the stock of the working fuel in the manual system fell to 60%, and Shepard recommended to lie down in the drift. But “Friendship-7” flew in some strange way: the instruments showed zero deviations, and the pilot clearly saw that they reached 20–50 ° on each axis. I had to "earn money" manually. In addition,John noticed that the large window was foggy. But he was sure that he could manually orient himself for braking, and even found the moment to joke with Cooper. 4 hours of the flight had just expired, and Glenn asked to report on command that he had collected the required monthly rate of flight in February and was awaiting payment of the “flight” surcharge.

The manager Christopher Kraft decided that Glenn should not reset the TDU after braking — then its mounting would hold the screen before entering the atmosphere, and when it burns out it would already hold a high-speed head. And although on the questions and reservations of the operators, the pilot realized that he was not okay, he did not know the essence of the problem almost to the end.  
At 2:20:16 PM the inhibition began (“I am carried back to Hawaii ...”), and in a minute the capsule descended from orbit. Due to the ban on shooting the TDU, Glenn had to manually stabilize the ship when entering the atmosphere. He did away with it, but completely consumed all the fuel ... 51 seconds before entering the end parachute.  
The reduction occurred 267 km east of Grand Turk, with a small volume of 65 km, but the new Noah, which picked up the capsule after 21 minutes. Glenn spent more time leaving the capsule: it was not possible to get through the front hatch and had to crawl through the side hatch.  
John Glenn showed that man can do in space flight.

And what about the ill-fated "segment 51"? And nothing - the signal was false.


	20. MA-7: “He might not fly again“

The second orbital flight of the MA􏰀7, a three-turn one, like the first, was to be carried out by Donald Slayton in April 1962. He called his ship Delta 7.  
Slayton, however, was unlucky: he was the first US astronaut to be removed from flight for medical reasons. The second was Ken Mattingly in April 1970, and the third such incident occurred 30 years later!

On August 25, 1959, Slayton was tested in a US Navy centrifuge at Johnsville (Pennsylvania). Before the exercise, the astronaut did an ECG, which the doctors did not like. A month later, leading cardiologists at the Air Force, Charles Kossman and Lawrence Lamb, examined Slayton and diagnosed idiopathy.  
Sometimes, usually after severe physical exertion, the heart began to miss a beat; in another day, these symptoms passed without a trace. Sleyton's opinions did not arise, and he continued training.  
In February 1962, Lamb suddenly recalled this story, and since he was the personal cardiologist of Vice-President Johnson, his voice was heard. There were two consultations. On the first, March 13, the Air Force doctors participated, and they confirmed that Slayton could fly. In the second, on March 15, he was examined by three of the best civilian cardiologists in the United States and recommended that he should replace Sleyton if possible. On the same day, contrary to the insistence of the leaders,Bill Douglas’s personal physician, associate physician, NASA chief executive James Webb announced that the pilot for MA-7 would be Scott Carpenter.

The rational grain in this was: one of the main goals of the Mercury project was to obtain medical data on the state of man in space flight, and the better the health of the “experienced”, the more reliable received information. However, this was not easier for him.  
Scott Carpenter called the capsule No18 in his own way: “Aurora-7”,contribution giving this name two meanings at once - “dawn” and “sunrise”. The launch was delayed for a month: the ship was refined according to the results of Glenn's flight, and the ships of the Atlantic fleet supporting the flight took part in the exercises.

May 24 at 07:45:16 local time, the Aurora-7 was launched. This launch was a success from the first attempt; he was only detained for 45 minutes because of fog. After 5 minutes, the capsule went into orbit with a height of 160.9x268.5 km, its mass was only 1349.5 kg - this record of the lightest orbital manned spacecraft has not been broken to this day. The path indicator (“Globus”) and a movie camera aimed at the dashboard were removed from the ship, the red light of the porthole filter was removed, the set of position marking tools after landing was reduced, and the astronaut's seat belt system was simplified - but the seat was more comfortable lodgment. Carpenter's capsule had improvements in the orientation system and in the parachute system, as well as protection in the landing chain of the landing gear.  
During the launch, Carpenter looked as calm as a boa constrictor: his pulse did not rise above 96, while Grissom had 162. Immediately after his separation, the astronaut took control, unfolded the capsule and up to the Caribbean islands !observed and photographed through the large window the receding “Atlas” and “tail” of ice crystals that were pulled behind the rocket engine.

Carpenter was planned, in addition to testing the ship and himself, six experiments. Glenn carried out only one of them - the observation of light signals from the Earth, but if John was prevented by a thunderstorm over the Indian Ocean, then Scott was a dense cloud over Australia. The lack of time was hampered by the survey of cloud structures for the US Weather Bureau, but, following Herman Titov, Carpenter observed and dropped a large number of landmarks on color film (Lake Chad, Madagascar forests, etc.) . Scott also shot the horizon and the sunset, watched the sunset of the star Feckd using a photometer, and determined the thickness of the luminous layer in the atmosphere at 2 °. He also conducted the first in space experiment on the physics of liquids — in the interests of developing onboard propulsion systems, the spacecraft observed and captured the wetting phenomenon of a capillary tube with liquid.  
98 minutes after the start, Carpenter performed a discharge from the antenna compartment of an inflatable target, a Mylar sphere with a diameter of 76 cm, consisting of sectors of different colors. The sphere, however, swept only by 1/3, the cable did not stretch to the end, and it was not possible to determine the coefficient of aerodynamic resistance by experiment. During further turns, the 30-meter nylon cable wrapped around the nose of the capsule, and the shooting at the 3rd coil did not happen, so the target dangled behind the ship and burned at the entrance to the atmosphere. And yet it was the first subsatellite, derived from a manned spacecraft.  
Carpenter tried to fly around to whomever: upside down and nose down. He saw the Glennian "sparkles" and realized that these were snowflakes that appear when they hit the wall of the ship. On the first turn, Scott ate, and the crumbs scattered across the cabin. 

Carpenter’s radio exchange with Earth was strikingly different from Glenn’s detailed and dry reports. Scott joked, he conveyed greetings to his acquaintances, often got confused and corrected himself ... and yet he did not have time for the overloaded program and made mistakes in orientation. Possibly, it was influenced by the high temperature: in the cabin it reached 42 ° C, in his spacesuit it sometimes rose to 32–35 ° C.  
By the 108th minute of the flight, the astronaut had consumed half of the working fluid from the tank of the automatic control loop and a third from the manual tank. In the middle of the second turn, Carpenter had to turn off the orientation automatic system, and spent most of the third turn (66 minutes) in a drift.

The pitch indicator on the Aurora-7 lied by 20 °, and just before braking Scott noticed this. Busy until the last “hunting for snowflakes”, he did not have time to correct the orientation - and the automatic engineer forbade entering the braking mode. After waiting two seconds, Carpenter started the mode manually. As a result, the TDU started working with a delay of 3.8 seconds, at T + 04 hours 33 minutes 10.3 seconds. But now that the powder flypowders have developed only 97% of the calculated thrust, and not in the inevitable error in pitch. The trouble was that the yaw deviation reached 27 °, reducing braking efficiency! When it ended, the Point Arguello radar station predicted a flight of 456 km; in fact, he was a little over 400 km.  
Immediately after issuing the braking impulse, the working medium in the manual circuit tank ended: Carpenter forgot to turn off this mode! During the entry into the atmosphere, the astronaut used to stabilize the tank of the automatic circuit and the electric remote control mode. Most of all, he was afraid that this reserve would also end - and this happened ... but, fortunately, at an altitude of 24 km, when the peak of loads was already behind. 

Being curled, the capsule fell down forward and to the left by 60 °. Carpenter did not wait for her to level out - drenched in sweat, he climbed out through the upper hatch and inflated the life raft (almost sinking along the way, “following the example of Griss􏰀om). 39 minutes after landing, the search service aircraft went out to the capsule, and after another 20 minutes two rescuers landed, which the astronaut managed to overlook. The first to the capsule was John Haychch, and Carpenter met him astounded “How did you get here?”. Only 2 hours and 59 minutes after the launch, was Scott aboard the helicopter and, after 4 hours and 11 minutes, on the aircraft carrier Interpid. The Aurora was picked up by the destroyer Pierce two more hours later.  
Carpenter sincerely believed that he was heroically out of a difficult situation, forgetting that he himself had created it. Flight director Christopher Kraft was furious with his work and declared in all-heartedness: "This son of a bitch will not fly with me anymore." So it happened.  
Even today, both of them, Kraft and Carpenter, published their memoirs — and each remained unconvinced.


	21. MA-8: “Exactly according to the textbook”

On June 27, Walter Schirra was appointed Pilot of the regular “Mercury” under the MA􏰀8 program, and Gordon Cooper was appointed its backup. The flight was planned for September 18, but took place two weeks later, mainly due to carrier problems. I remember two incidents: the strike of hired personnel at Cape Canaveral, and also the first and, it seems, the last nuclear diplomatic incident in a manned spacecraft program.

The flight of Walter Schirra was planned for a little less than six turns with landing in the Pacific Ocean.  
As early as October 25, 1961, shortly after Vostok-2, the NASA management decided to modify the Mercury for daily flight and allocated four capsules with serial numbers 12, 15, 17, and 20 for this. However, the requirements There was a rather significant development of the ship: installation of an additional fuel tank, improvement of power supply systems, life support, etc. It turned out that at best it would be possible to fly for a day only at the beginning of 1963.  
Therefore, at the end of February 1962, it was decided to make one or two flights of "intermediate" duration, by six turns, requiring a smaller amount of modifications. For this, they began to prepare the capsules No16 and 19. Thus, it was possible to conduct two 6-turn flights and up to three diurnal flights.  
On the ship No16, something has changed from the previous one. In order to avoid excessive consumption of fuel by orientation, a toggle switch was turned off for “powerful” 20-pound engines in the electrical control mode. The thermal insulation was removed from the TDU and two two-meter KV antennas were installed there to improve communication. They took off one of the command receivers of the decoders, a camera that shot pictures of an astronaut in flight, and two lamps. They wanted to take down the periscope, but after the unsuccessful landing, Carpenter declined.  
On September 12, Cape Canaveral was visited by President John F. Kennedy and examined the LC-14 launch complex, the Sigma-7 rocket and capsule installed on it.

Climbing into the cabin of the ship early in the morning of October 3, Walter Schirr discovered a sandwich in the glove compartment, and an ignition key near the steering wheel. This was joking by the members of the starting team. The launch was with a 15-minute delay due to a malfunction of the radar on Grand Bahama Island. At 7:15,the Atlas carrier rocket rose from its launch pad. During its ascent,it rotated to the “emergency” angle, but then leveled. The Atlas propulsion engine worked for 10 seconds longer than required, and the speed exceeded the design speed by 4.5 m / s and amounted to 7849 m / s. As a result, the Sigma-7 orbit was higher than that of the two previous ships: 161.0 km at perigee and 283.0 km at apogee.  
After separation and reversal, Shirra observed the empty Atlas hull and concluded that, in principle, approaching another object in orbit at a low relative speed is possible.  
The main task of the pilot in this flight was to stretch six turns of a small - only 27 kg - the fuel of the orientation system's fuel and not get into that unavoidable position that Carpenter reached in only three turns. Schirra tried to make all turns in the electro-remote control mode, and as slowly as possible, and only to stabilize the capsule leave the automat. He called this last mode “monkey”, because only Sam or Enos, who could not control the orientation of the capsule, could fly “in the automatics”.  
By the form of the Earth, the Moon, and the luminous layer in the atmosphere, by the porthole with Wally's angular marks on it, by the end of the first turn, he learned to determine his orientation along all three axes without instruments; He tried to use a periscope and once again made sure that it is almost useless during the day and does not help at night. The night orientation on the star map on the second orbit turned out to be more difficult, and yet the astronaut made a mistake of only 4 °.  
At the beginning of the third orbit, as was envisaged by the flight plan, Schirra fastened the gyroscopes, turned off the power supply of the orientation system and radio beacons, and went into the drift until the fifth circuit. 

(“It was my first rest since December,” the pilot remarked.) However, twice during the 118-minute drift, he re-energized and focused on the case if an urgent landing was required. Although the drift provided little opportunity for observing the Earth, Shirra did all the same taking photographs of California, Texas and Cuba on the third circuit and South America on the fifth.  
He tried to see light pulses at the Woomera test site in Australia on the 1st turn and a powerful continuous light source in Durban (South Africa) on the 5th and 6th. Alas, again nothing happened - in both cases cloudiness prevented. But the operator of the floating measuring complex in the Indian Ocean happily informed aboard that the officers of the ship observed the flight of “Sigma-7” for five minutes. Judging by the fact that the converging point was “brighter than Venus,” in fact, the sailors saw a much larger “Atlas” level.  
Photographing and observing light sources were the only experiments that Schirra himself conducted during the flight. Two more were passive: two pairs of sensors measured the radiation environment, and nine test samples of heat-shielding materials were placed on the upper cylindrical part of the capsule.  
Earth advised Walter to try to observe the bright satellite Echo balloon on the fourth orbit, but the astronaut decided not to do this - he escaped fuel. By the time of de-orbiting, 78% of the initial refueling remained in each of the two control loops, that is, the astronaut used only about 6 kg. Whatever Carpenter said there, and Schirra proved: fuel can be spent economically.  
Even at the first orbit, above Zanzibar, Walter felt that it was hot in the suit - the temperature had risen to + 32 ° C. As it turned out, the cause was a dried silicone grease. Fearing that when the regulator was turned into several divisions, the heat exchanger would freeze immediately, as in Carpenter, the astronaut removed the heating by half a unit at a time, keeping 10 minutes from the initial mark 4 to 7.5. (Meanwhile, at the Canaveral Cape MCC, they thought whether the Sigma-7 should be landed after theee or four turns, but by the time of decision-making, the temperature had stopped rising, and the astronaut was allowed to continue the flight.)

Due to overheating, Shirra wanted to drink, but only on the second turn, having coped with the temperature regulator and felt comfortable, he allowed himself to do it. At the third round, he ate a meat dish with vegetables and peaches from tubes, and also baked bread, fruits and nuts pressed into cubes.  
To the fourth turn on the left on the inner surface of the glass helmets  
moisture had settled, but the astronaut chose to turn his head for two hours, looking for a more transparent place than to lift the glass and wipe it with the risk of breaking the hardly chosen heat regime — and did it only before going off the orbit.  
As for radiation, at the third round of the earth, Slayton asked Shirra what his dosimeter was showing. It turned out that the arrow does not reach the first scale division. Later, doctors found that Wally received a smaller dose than with a chest X-ray.  
When Sigma-7 was on the fourth circuit over California, a small piece of negotiations between Shirra and Glenn — just two minutes — was first broadcast on live television and radio.  
The brake control worked normally after 8 hours and 52 minutes after the start; the automat kept the capsule “fixed”. When entering the atmosphere, the astronaut, at the request of the MCC, used the “high-speed” electromechanical orientation mode — the fuel was spent very quickly and 50% of the initial charge of the manual circuit was stabilized in 6.5 minutes. Chilling out for a moment, when the burnt-down tapes of the TDU flew past him, Shirra waited for the moment of the introduction of the exhaust parachute.  
Sigma-7 splashed down 507 km to the northeast of Midway,with a distance of 7 km from the calculated point, but only 8 km from the aircraft carrier Kirsargege with correspondents on it. For a full 30 seconds, the capsule went under water (the pilot felt very uncomfortable), but then surfaced and leveled. Shirra was insensitive to seasickness and asked to be lifted aboard the ship directly in the capsule, which was done 43 minutes after the landing. The flight, performed “exactly according to the textbook,” was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On July 9, the United States fired at a height of 399 km above the Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean a test explosion of a 1.4 Mt thermonuclear ammunition. The unexpected result of the test was the appearance of a high-intensity artificial radiation belt.  
> Shortly thereafter, in the first days of August, American experts raised a fuss: the response of the Soviet cosmic explosion, which they expected after the Declaration of July 22 “about the forced testing of the latest Soviet nuclear weapons”, could be dangerous. for Walter Schirra’s flight! It should be noted that the Soviet side did not produce cosmic explosions of such power at all, and  
> It went, - she had much more cause for concern: there were only a few days left before the pair flight of Andriyan Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich.  
> On August 11, on the day of the launch of Vostok-3, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, G. M. Pushkin, presented the person in charge of US affairs in the USSR, J. McSui, with the appeal of the Government of the USSR. It called on Americans to “refrain from conducting nuclear explosions that could endanger the safety of the Soviet cosmonaut”. On the same day, the US Department of State declared that the USA “does not schedule any actions that would in any way interfere with the Soviet cosmonaut”.  
> In the meantime, the Americans estimated that, although the new radiation belt is reaching the greatest intensity.  
> at an altitude of 650 km or more, for his six turns, Walter Schirra can receive a dose of skin irradiation up to 8 roentgens; and if it were not for the two protective shells — the spacesuit and the cabin walls — then this value would have reached 500 rents! Although 8 roentgens were within the tolerance, three days after the publication of this forecast, the launch was postponed until September 28 — experts hoped that by that time the radiation level would be lower.  
> And everything repeated “exactly the opposite”: On October 2, the same scientist presented a note of the State Department to the member of the collegium of the USSR Foreign Ministry, M.N. Smirnovsky, for which he received the answer: “The Soviet Union will not take, of course, any actions that could to create obstacles to the flight of the American cosmonaut. ”


	22. MA-9: “I can see everything from above ...”

Since Walter Schirra’s 6-turn flight was brilliant, it was refused from its repetition, and already on October 9, a capsule No20 was brought to Canaveral to prepare for a daily flight. November 13 Gordon Cooper was appointed pilot  
MA􏰀9, and Alan Shepard - his understudy. The rest of the astronauts in January 1963 were assigned specific directions in the Gemini and Apollo projects - and this meant that a maximum of two flights of Mercury remained.  
Cooper thought for a long time over the name of his capsule and called it "Faith" 7: this name "symbolizes my faith in God, in my country and in my associates."  
The mission's objectives were as follows: to study the effect of factors of a long (34-hour) cosmic field on an astronaut and his ability to steer the ship, to assess possible dangers during longer flights under the Gemini program.  
To this end, 19 significant changes were made to the systems of the No20 spacecraft, and their total number reached 183.

Thus, the third top was included in the orientation system. It had 45 kg of extra maneuvering fuel and a third valve as backup,to transfer fuel between the two subsystems. Doubled the capacity of two of the six onboard batteries. A low-frequency television device was installed to monitor the pilot's condition and halved the feed rate of the on-board tape recorder. They increased the supply of oxygen (by 1.8 kg) and the CO2 absorber (by 0.36 kg), added 2 liters of drinking water and 4 liters to the cooling system. For the first time, frozen and dehydrated foods were introduced into the diet. An additional tank was made to collect urine and remove condensate from the spacesuit, as well as a pumping system. For surveying the Earth and other experiments, scientific equipment was installed with a total weight of 28 kg.

And so that the mass of the capsule does not exceed the capabilities of the rocket, the periscope was removed from it (the gain was 34.5 kg), part of the orientation equipment for controlling the angular velocity (5.4 kg) and spare voice transmitters and telemetry (together 2.2 kg). As a result, "Faith 7" pulled at 1375.8 kg and was just a couple of kilograms heavier than its predecessor.  
In the command-measuring complex, new stations were included, over which other “Mercury” did not fly. They were located on the islands of Antigua, Ascension, Easter, and Wake and on two ships. Landing in any of the 26 design areas was provided by 28 ships, 171 aircraft and nearly 13,800 military personnel.  
The flight was first planned for April 2–3, 1963, but in February it was postponed until mid-May: the No130D rocket did not pass the output control for the first time, and it was necessary to modify its control system.

The first attempt to launch “Faith 7” - on May 14 at 07:00 local time - failed due to failures of the “land” and polygon means. At first he gave errors in the azimuth and range of the radar at Bermuda station. Then, for a full 129 minutes, the diesel engine could not start and take the maintenance tower from the rocket. When we coped with this problem, Bermuda “distinguished itself” again: the data converter failed and the errors went off in range. At 10:57, at the mark of T􏰀13 min, the start was postponed for a day. Gordon Cooper's reaction was remarkable: after making sure that the launch was not taking place at the estimated time, he decided to take a nap ... and fell asleep - right in the ship, which was on a tucked rocket. And after sitting in a capsule for 6 hours and finally getting out of it, he said that the training was very realistic ... and went fishing.  
On May 15, the launch took place at 09:04 am local time, with a delay of only 4 minutes due to the failure of ground navigation equipment, but Cooper managed this time to take a nap in the ship before the start. Removal lasted 303 seconds; the rocket worked very accurately,drove a speed of up to 7844 m / s and put the “Faith 7” into orbit with an altitude of 161.5 km at perigee to 267.1 km at apogee. Then the ballistics calculated that the “reserve” height would be enough for 76 turns of flight.  
Gordon Cooper began his flight by breaking the Walter Schirra record: he spent only 90 grams of fuel instead of 135 capsules on the turn. For nearly 8 minutes, the astronaut followed his rocket with a glance and during that time “jumped” the Atlantic. At the end of the first round, Gus Grissom from Guaymas station gave “official” permission to fly seven turns. “How much?” - Cooper asked. “Yes, as much as you like,” Grissom replied. After 10 minutes, Shirra addressed Cooper with the words: “I am still higher and faster than you, but I feel that you will fly further”.

During the first two turns, Gordon coped with the tricks of the temperature regulator, caught two washers flying around the cab and got used to weightlessness, saw the first cosmic approaches and sunrises, as well as stars through the night haze and the Milky Way above, and were illuminated by lightning clouds. below, and the lights of Perth, and the Atlas Mountains. He tried the manual control modes, took a nap for five minutes and released a few jokes that he shamefully excluded from the negotiating stenogram. The earth, however, tried to “fit”: it reported that in the television picture on the nose of Cooper the fly was visible, then it offered to “move” the device with a hammer.  
But it was time to deal with 11 planned experiments. At the beginning of the 3rd turn (T + 03:25) and 15 minutes before sunset, Cuper shot a subsatellite target from the TDU block. It was a ball with a diameter of 146 mm and a mass of about 4.5 kg with two xenon lamp-flashes on opposite “poles”, which acquired a relative speed of 3 m / s “down” relative to the ship. The astronaut then oriented his nose forward and, after entering the shadow, tried to see him: failed. “How do you know that you separated him?” He heard in the next session. “I felt how it separated…” The earth remained in doubt, but before entering the shadow on the 4th orbit, Gordon found all the same “his” satellite. On the night side, he saw the lamp flash once every second, and he estimated the distance to the target at 13–16 km. “I was with a little con man all last night,” he happily reported to Hawaii after a long time — more than an hour! - pauses between communication sessions. At the 5th orbit, the astronaut saw a flashing light several more times, but with difficulty. The experiment proved that in the project “Gemini” the conditions for approaching the target were correctly chosen and its signal lights would be visible.

This subsatellite was not the only one that Cooper had to launch. At the end of the 6th orbit, at T + 09:00, he tried to bring an inflatable semi-meter-like sphere into flight, but alas - not from the first attempts, neither from the second, did the pyrocharge of the container lid ignite successfully. But at the 6th orbit of Cooper, the first American astronaut could see a point source of light on the night surface of the Earth — a lamp of about 14 kW and an intensity of 30–35 thousand candles located near the South African city of Bloomfontein. In those years, such sources were supposed to be used for navigation - as a kind of buoy.  
However, even from a distance of 590 km, an astronaut could see light only for 30–40 seconds - this would hardly be enough for any angular measurements. The pilot made measurements of temperature and pressure and, with great difficulty, transferred a sample of urine for analysis to a special package.  
Exactly 10 hours after launch, he received permission to fly up to the 17th orbit. Cooper went into a drift and from the 10th to the 13th circuit was supposed to sleep. Later he said that when everything was turned off in the ship, it was hard not to fall asleep, but in summer he woke up only an hour later: it became hot in his spacesuit. The pilot continued to fall asleep tightly, despite the hands that “pop up” in weightlessness, but not for long. Waking up, the astronaut then took up the camera, then spoke in bad words his temperature controller, who did not know the intermediate position between “hot” and “cold”.  
At the 14th orbit, the astronaut recorded a thankful prayer on the onboard recorder. It was strange, this first prayer, which sounded in orbit. “Help us successfully complete this flight,” said Cooper. “Help us in our future space affairs, so that we can show the world that demos can compete and still do everything right, can conduct research and development, and can conduct various scientific and high-tech programs in a completely peaceful setting. Stay with our families, direct them and inspire and give them peace so they know that everything will be ok. We hope in your name. Amen".

On the morning of the second day of the flight, Kuper received a congratulatory telegram from the President of El Salvador and from the Minister of Supply of Australia and delivered a message to the leaders of the African countries who had gathered in Addis Ababa. And you thought, only Soviet cosmonauts were engaged in this? Far from it.  
At the 16th orbit, Gordon orientated "Mercury" so that it rotated slowly in a flat  
ecliptic, and, flying in the night from Zanzibar to Canton, was able to see the zodiacal light and the night glow of the sky. He filmed with a special 35􏰀mm camera,but it turned out not particularly successful. Above Mexico, an astronaut photographed a horizon for specialists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who worked on the Apollo spacecraft navigation aids. “I take everything off, take pictures and take pictures,” he complained over Canaveral — what he received in return was permission to fly until the 22nd turn.  
On instructions from the US weather bureau on the 17th and 18th rounds, the astronaut conducted surveys on infrared-sensitive film — and these images proved that the near-infrared range is optimal for meteorological satellites. Gordon shot the horizon and the moon setting in the atmosphere. Everything was in order, everything worked out, the supply of oxygen and fuel was huge. Cooper even sang on the air.

His problems began at the 19th coil. At T + 28: 59, the pilot discovered that the green light of the overload indicator 0.05 g was lit. Usually he informs about the beginning of the entry into the atmosphere, but the astronaut saw that all the objects in the cockpit are still weightless. Communication sessions were rare and short, and the entire 20th thread went to check the operation of the orientation machine. It turned out that he "perceived" a false signal of 0.05g and was already working in the descent mode.  
The probable cause of the malfunction was liquid that came under the remote control and closed the contacts. In the cockpit, the tap of the drinking water tank was leaking, and the pilot had to pick up the drops with a handkerchief. Set up CO2, and the partial pressure of O2 in the cabin is not reduced. Spare inverter is not included in the line. Other than that, everything else is great. ” What is it like? Before descending from orbit, exactly one communication zone, of all the options for controlling the capsule, only the tame ones remained, and the astronaut still considers it possible to ernock! Indeed, “nothing in our lives can knock out of the saddle” ...  
And if so, the rest of the operations pilot Gordon Cooper did himself. Over the stars and the lights of the night of Shanghai manually deployed the ship to de-orbit. At the command of Glenn, he switched on the brake control from the remote control on the 22nd turn. Manually "held" the ship while working  
hoisted her three engines. I manually fired off the TDU - at the same time, due to a manufacturing defect, the electric cable was not separated. Manually we orientated to enter the atmosphere and performed a spin.  
The end of one of the tapes of the TDU fastening “hung” right in front of the large window glass, and Cooper saw with his own eyes how he turned red, then turned white from heating and, finally, broke into pieces. It is not surprising that the astronaut's pulse had risen to 184. But, to gently fend off the oscillations of the capsule, Cooper led his ship through the plasma. The parachutes opened up normally, the excess fuel was drained, and  
􏰀7 ”flopped into the Pacific Ocean 130 km from Midway, with an undershoot just 1.8 km from the calculated point! An hour later, Cooper was already staggering on the deck of the aircraft carrier Kirsaard.  
And in the final report on the project “Mercury” they made the following entry: if there were no pilot on board the four manned orbital flights, only Schirra's capsule would fly normally, Glenn’s ship would have boarded ahead of schedule. 􏰀7 ”would have been a disaster.


	23. Project Mercury:the cancelled flight of MA-10

On February 1959 the last drawings for the project “Mercury” were signed. McDonnell Aircraft (St. Louis, pc. Missouri) received an order for a series of 12 products. Later eight more capsules were added to it. 15 of these ships were launched, and products No10, 12, 15, 17, and 19 still did not leave the launch pad.  
During the period when Gordon Cooper completed the preparation for the flight MA-9, NASA discussed the plans for the following missions. The work on the project “Gemini” was already in full swing. However, it was clear that the new two-seater ship would not fly soon, and there was a pause in the US manned program. To fill it, as well as to expand the experience of piloted flights, at the beginning of 1963, the possibility of performing a long orbital flight of the Mercury capsules was considered.  
Recall that the “full-time” flight duration of the “Mercury” during its development was shortened from 18 to 3 turns, and Glenn and Carpenter went three turns. A minor revision allowed Walter Schirra to fly six turns (MA-8, October 3, 1962). After that, Gordon Cooper began preparing for a “manned one-day mission” (MODM, Manned One􏰀Day Mission). At first it was planned for 18 turns, and in February 1963, Cooper's flight was extended to 22 turns (34 hours). It would have been an excellent result for Mercury, but he, of course, could not compete with AGNikolaev, a four-day orbital marathon, on Vostok-3.

And then Alan Shepard began an intensive campaign for the implementation of another flight in the program "Mercury" - a duration of several days. He was ready to fly and knew that there was a ship for such a flight.  
However, the new goal of NASA had already become the moon. The capabilities of Mercury were too diverted to play any role in this direction. And by the time of launch of MA-9, the balance was inclined to the fact that this flight would be the last.  
On May 13, 1963, Julian Shire, NASA Deputy Administrator for Public Relations, told a press conference: “No questions asked: if this launch (MA-9) is successful, MA-10 will not fly”.  
And when Gordon Cooper finished his brilliant flight on May 16 and splashed down in the Atlantic, the Mercury project was actually completed — after all, all his tasks were completed and exceeded. This was confirmed on May 19, 1963 at the post-flight press conference by the Deputy Administrator of NASA, Dr. Robert Simans. On the question of whether another “Mercury” flight would be completed, Simans honestly answered: “This is very unlikely.”  
However, the official final decision on MA-10 was not yet taken, and Shepard, interested in flying more than others, increased the pressure. He said that the first manned “Gemini” will start only after a year (actually it turned out - after two), and it is advisable to accomplish the “expanded” mission of “Mercury” with a duration of at least three days. Alan was supported not only by the collectivist community, but also by influential people from NASA: Brian Holmes, Director of the Managed Space Program Administration and Walter Williams, Director of Operations for the Mercury Project. The latter, in particular, defended MA􏰀10 flights with an “open date”: a minimum duration of 100 hours, and possibly up to 6 days, until the pilot was in a working condition, until the batteries are exhausted, or oxygen runs out, or some of the ship's systems fail. Williams believed that such a flight could replace the first two short-term Gemini missions, thereby reducing the program by 6 months. Then it would be possible to launch double ships at once for a week.  
So, the supporters of the long flight MA􏰀10 rested on the fact that it is technically possible, and the ship is almost ready; opponents, including NASA administrator James Webb, knew that he was drawing strength from the creation of Gemini and will give too little.

Then, on May 21, at the Cooper Award ceremony, Alan Shepard addressed directly to President John F. Kennedy: “There is an opportunity to fulfill one more, long mission of Mercury ... and we would like to do it.” Kennedy asked what Webb thinks about it, and, hearing a negative answer, announced:”I think I should be at one with Mister Webb ...” And the next day, at a press conference, he confirmed that it was NASA that “had to decide”.  
The fate of MA-10 was decided at a meeting in Washington on June 6–7, in which Holmes, Gilrut, Williams, Kleinknecht, Simans, Dryden, and Webb participated. The “Houston” could not convince the “Washington”: Webb, although he admitted the arguments of the supporters of MA􏰀10, were “completely convincing”, but he was adamant: the ship was outdated, its time had passed, all forces had to be concentrated on “Gemini” and Apollo. Speaking before the Senate Space Committee on June 12, Webb said: “There will be no more Mercury launches.”  
This happened four days before Valery Bykovsky’s launch on the Vostok-5 ... But already on June 13, 1963, the contract with McDonnell under the Mercury program was withdrawn, and the ship No15B remained in storage at Cape Kanavera. In September 1967, it was handed over to the National Aerospace Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. In recent years, MA-10 has been ex- plained at the Ames Center (Moffford-Field, California). Sheltered with a plexiglass shell, the capsule is in a poorly lit room, where it is presented as a “reserve ship under the Mercury program”.

And yet “Mercury” MA􏰀10 made a flight, albeit a fictional one, in the Martin Kadin novel Marooned in Space (in the Russian translation “Captured Orbits”). This was the story of an astronaut, who in 1964 all the same ordered to fly the MA-10. Brake missiles were abandoned for its descent from orbit - but rescue came in the form of the Russian Vostok-9 and the first American Gemini ...


	24. Project Voskhod:from single to triple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters on Shuttle missions won’t be chronological. They will follow the book’s thematic structure.

After the successful completion of the flight of the ships "Vostok-5" and "Vostok-6" the question arose: what to do next? The long flight of Valery Bykovsky and, most importantly, the first flight into space of a woman once again showed the world the superiority of Soviet space technology over the American one. However, the United States was working at full speed on the construction of two-seater “Jémini” spacecraft with the possibility of approaching, docking and going into outer space. It was impossible to give up ... Meanwhile, the Soviet promising manned projects lagged behind! About the flight of the Soyuz, or about circling the moon in 1963 and 1964. there could be no question.  
True, there were four more “Vostok” in the reserve, created on the basis of the decision of the MIC No24 of February 8, 1963 “On the fabrication of“ Vostok ”facilities”. In this document, the output of which N.P. Kamanin sought a whole year, it was considered expedient to continue the experiments at Vostok and the task was to develop and approve a production schedule of four ships and missiles in the first half of 1963. for them. In addition, the resolution provided for an increase in the duration of a man’s flight in the “East” to 10 days, and animals to 30 days.  
In pursuance of this decision, immediately after the flight of V.F. Bykovsky and V.V.Te􏰀, decisive General Kamanin formed a group of cosmonauts to prepare for flights on the Vostok in 1963–64. The flight program agreed with the SP Korolev envisaged a 10–11-day flight with animals in an orbit of 600–1000 km in February and March of 1964 and three astronaut flights of up to 10 days military Research programs.  
On July 26, at the meeting of the technical management, S.P. Korolev made suggestions to improve the “Vostok”: install a spare brake engine, a soft landing system, etc. At the same time, Korolev suggested for the first time (theoretically) the possibility space flight "passengers" ...

On September 17, 1963, a group of cosmonauts of the CPC, which included: Vladimir Komarov, Pavel Belyaev, Alexey Leonov, Boris Volynov, Yevgeny Khrunov, Viktor Gorbatko, Dmitry Zaikin and Georgy Shonin, began preparations for a group flight on two Vostok ships with a duration of 8–10 days in 1964.  
On November 30, the Air Force updated their proposals for the next flights: a dog's flight for 10 days at an altitude of 600 km, a cosmonaut's single flight for 8 days, a group flight of two ships with spacecraft up to 10 days with conducting military experiments.  
At the beginning of December 1963, N.P.Kamanin formed the crews for the three “Vostokov”, but only on January 23, 1964 the Air Force Military Council decided to start training the following pilots: Volynov, Khrunov, Belyaev, Khrunov,and Leonov. The latter was admitted to the cosmonaut corps at the same Council and was recommended to prepare him for an accelerated program. On January 30, the whole group went to Kirzhach for parachute jumps.  
It was already 1964, and there was no approved flight program of the Vostok. Their assembly at the factory No88 was delayed due to the fulfillment of other, more important tasks. In addition, oddly enough, there was a catastrophic lack of funding. Yes, “Vostok” could no longer bring any political effect, therefore the attention of the country's leadership to them has weakened.

At this point, SP Korolyov came up with the idea of making a three-seater from the Vostok single ship. He suggested that the project, led by KP Feoktistov, should develop this idea, but they categorically refused: they would have to break the entire flight and landing scheme, and this would take time. Then, at the next meeting, Korolev promised to allocate one place in the multi-seat “Vostok” (called “Sunrise”) for the designer. The work began to take shape - and an incredible thing happened: the new ship "started" ...  
In January 1964, S. Korolev reported on the possibility of a flight of a three-seater ship before the Americans personally to NS Khrushchev and received his full support, despite the fact that the report noted: the risk of flying on a three-seater “Rising” is greater than in the "East". But N.S. Khrushchev very much hoped for a great political effect from  
flight of a triple ship and therefore agreed to this flight. B.E. Chertok recalled: “Khrushchev pushed [S.P.Korolyov] to gamble, and he, having no way moved away the“ Union ”, personally plunged into the creation of“ Voskhod ”. There was a noticeable quick tactical success, and for its sake a strategic task was postponed. ”  
On February 4, 1964, S.P. Korolyov received an order “from above”: the new “Vostok” would no longer be built, and those four 3KA ships that were assembled at the factory would be re-equipped for the flight of three cosmonauts. On February 5, at the presentation of the draft “Vostok” project to representatives of industry and the Air Force, S.P. Korolev announced that the flight was possible already in spring 1964. Even without a chance, many decisions required experimental confirmation.  
On March 13, the military-industrial complex gathered, which instructed the Air Force to prepare a crew comprising: an astronaut, a scientist and a doctor. The launch of Voskhod was scheduled for the first half of August 1964 (decision of the MIC No59). The selection of astronauts and crew training lasted only 5 months.

The Voskhod program was approved by the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the USSR Council of Ministers of April 13, 1964. In the second half of 1964 and the beginning of 1965, another five modernized ships for outer space would be produced in the second half of 1964 and early 1965. The three-seater ship received the designation 3KV, and the ship with the possibility of entering the open space - 3KD. Test launches with animals on board should have preceded manned launches.  
It seemed that all the principal problems had been resolved, and on June 14, 1964, the Council of Ministers Resolution on the 3KV ship was issued. But by the middle of July it turned out that in the first half of August the start would not take place: there were serious problems with the landing system. On July 9, the satellite Zenit-4 (Kosmos-34), on which a soft landing system was tested, sank in the Ural mountains and rolled 300 m along a 30-degree slope, and only after that the engine was soft 􏰀 cages worked. In order to protect even the astronauts' heads in the event of such a “soft” landing, it was even suggested to equip them with special helmets ... Nevertheless, on August 14, after a month of intensive work, at the technical meeting S.P. Korolev reported that 􏰀 The landing systems of Voskhod were successful. Of the nine landings, three were at a speed of 7.5 m / s, and six at a speed of 1.5 m / s to zero. We decided to hold three more tests.  
On August 21, at the meeting of the military industrial complex S.P. Korolev, he reported that work on the 3KV ship was nearing completion. It was decided to launch the first ship 3KV with a small  
Nekens until September 5, and with astronauts - September 15–20. But these plans were thwarted. First, there were delays in the delivery of the 11A57 launch vehicle from Kuybyshev to the landfill. Then, on August 29, in Feodosia, when the SA was suspended on an aircraft for testing, the hatch of the parachute container spontaneously opened. I had to figure it out and put the tests aside. On September 7, during tests, the same hatch did not open at all - and the SA, falling from 10 km, crashed. Again delay. Further, in early September, due to the failure of the engine of the central unit A, the launch vehicle with the next Zenit 4 did not leave the launch, but the rocket was exactly the same as for the launch of the first 3KV. It took time to deal with these problems.  
On September 9, the State Commission made a decision: on September 14 to launch the next Zenit-4, September 18–20 - Voskhod with mannequins, on September 23 to discharge the SA from an airplane in Feodosia, and at the end of September to launch Voskhod.

On September 13, at 12:45 pm, the Zenit-4 (“Cosmos-45”) spacecraft successfully launched on the 11A57 rocket, and it was “rehabilitated”. On September 18, the State Commission reviewed all the findings on the accident and decided to launch the Voskhod unmanned vehicle without additional tests on September 28–30.

September 24–26 Khrushchev personally visited the launch site. He examined the layout of the 3KD ship, spoke with Yu.A. Gagarin, P.I.Belyaev, A.A. Leonov. Alexey Leonov showed the head of state the entrance to the gateway and out of it in a new spacesuit. In addition, N.S. Khrushchev observed five demonstrative missile launches of S.P. Korolev, V.N.Chelomei and MKYangel.  
On September 29, it turned out that during a ground test of the unmanned Voskhod , the onboard telemetry Tral had failed. The launch was postponed for 5 days. While they were busy with the “Tral”, on October 3, in Feosia, they successfully carried out a test discharge of SA from the aircraft.  
On October 4, the rocket-space complex was taken to the launch of the 1st platform. Prelaunch preparation of the carrier and the ship went surprisingly smoothly.

On October 6, 1964, at 10:00 AM UHF, the carrier 11A57 launched the first ship of the new 3KV No2 series, named in the TASS message “Cosmos 47”. Instead of astronauts on his board were three dummy. The ship went into orbit with the following parameters: inclination - 64 ° 46 ’, perigee - 177 km, apogee - 413 km, orbital period - 90 min. A day later, at the 17th orbit, the ship landed successfully in a predetermined area between Shrub and Petropavlovsk with strong wind (15–17 m / s). The soft landing system worked normally. The SA touched the ground at almost zero speed, but because of the wind, it stretched about 160 meters. If there were cosmonauts on board, they would shoot the parachutes by hand and no drag would occur. The test of the 3KV ship was considered successful.  
While the ship was being developed and tested, the Air Force conducted a selection of civilian comrades and prepared the crews.


	25. Project Voskhod:crew training of the first "Sunrise"

Due to the fact that only on March 13, 1964, it was decided to include a scientist and a doctor in the crew, it was necessary to urgently proceed to their selection. There was very little time left, and N.P. Kamanin chose to be cunning in the hope that it would not be possible to select and train civilian cosmonauts for five months. Therefore, on April 1, he agreed with Marshal KA Vershinin a new group of cosmonauts and pilots of engineers from the CPC detachment: V.F. Bykovsky, P.R. Popovich, G.S. Titov, B.V. Volynov, A.A.Leonov, E.V. Khrunov, P.I.Belyayev, V.M. Komarov, L.S. Demin. April 23 began their training.  
At the same time, there was a selection of a doctor and a scholar in the crew of the first three-seater “Voskhod”. On April 2, N.P. Kamanin received a list of 18 candidates from the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and sent them for medical examination to the Central Military Research Aviation Hospital (TsNNIAG). Soon, doctors from the CPC, the State Red Banner Scientific Research Institute of the Air Force, the Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine (IAKM) of the Air Force, and the Institute of Medical Biological Problems (IMBP) of the USSR Ministry of Health arrived at the examination. By May 5, out of 50 candidates, only 14 remained. And only from OKB1  
there was not a single candidate. Korolev was waiting for you ... Finally, 14 candidates from OKB-1 were also sent for medical examination. After the initial selection, V.N. Volkov, G.M. Grechko, V.P. Zaytsev, V.N.Kubasov, O.G. Makarov, A.M.Sidorov, K.P. Feoktistov and V.A. Yazdovskiy, who were sent to TsVNIAG.

On May 21, a significant meeting of S.P.Korolyov, KD Bushuyev and N.P.Kamanin took place. They decided that they would not take astronauts who have already flown in the Vostok. Kamanin justified it in the following way: “First of all, we will have more flying cosmonauts. Secondly, in case of failure, it will be easier to avoid wide publicity ... ”  
Immediately after the meeting, Kamanin ordered the training of crews on board: Komarov – Belyaev – Leonov; Volynov –Gorbatko – Khrunov in the hope that “civilians” will be rejected during selection. The Mandate Commission for the selection of doctors and scientists was held on May 26. Of the eight doctors represented, they received a recommendation to the crew of V.G. Lazarev (36 years old, lieutenant colonel, from IAKM), B. B. Yegorov (26 years old, lieutenant of medical service, from IAKM, but attached to IBMP) , B.Polyakov (26 years old, graduate student of the Institute of Biophysics, Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR) and AV Sorokin (33 years old, captain of the medical service, from the CPC). Of the two candidates from the UNSSSR that passed the test, preference was given to Georgy Katys (36 years old, doctor of technical sciences, head of the laboratory of the Institute of Automation and Remote Control), but the decision was postponed.

On May 29, the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force signed an order to enroll all four doctors and Georgy Katys for training, and from June 1 they began training. The cosmonauts of the CPC, Boris Volynov and Vladimir Komarov, continued to train with them in the group, as were engineer cosmonaut engineer Lieutenant Colonel Lev Demin and the engineer Colonel Alexander Blagoveshchensky who was selected back in February after the protection of Kamanin's classmate. Vladimir Benderov, Tester of the ANB Tupolev Design Bureau. On June 11, at the credentials committee, Konstantin Feoktistov received the go-ahead and joined the training in this group. He was the only candidate from OKB􏰀1.  
The shortness of the medical selection soon made itself felt. On June 19, when measuring candidates for a crew at the Zvezda plant, where individual lodgements were made, it turned out that Demin had a sitting height of 98 cm, Katys and Benderov had a 95 cm height (the rest had 90 cm). As a result, Demin was deprived of preparation, and for Katys and Benderov they found an opportunity to manufacture special head restraints. But the trouble with the candidates did not end there. When training in a centrifuge, it was discovered that Benderov had blood in his urine and does not disappear. In addition, he could not cope with overweight. And Boris Polyakov, the only civilian doctor in the group, felt very bad in a thermo-chamber, in a centrifuge and during vestibular training.

So there are seven people left in the group. On July 6, N.Kamanin formed two of these seven crews: the first one - Volynov, Katys, Yegorov, the second - Komarov, Feoktistov, Sorokin. Vasily Lazarev was spare for both crews. NPKamanin, convinced that only military men should fly into space, was categorically opposed to the flight of civilian candidates, all the more prepared in a hurry. KP Feoktistov, according to Kamanin, could not fly, because, in addition to his poor eyesight, he had other health problems. There were problems with G.P. Katys, though several others ... From the KGB, Kamaninu learned that "... Katys, besides the father who was shot, has another brother and sister (father) in Paris, and Katys wrote nothing about them in his autobiography. True, they left for Paris as early as 1910, after Katys was born, but, nevertheless, all this spoils the portrait of the candidate for astronauts. ” At that time, the presence of relatives abroad was a serious “stain” in the biography ... True, the commission did not take this fact into account, because Georgy Katy explained that he did not know anything about his father’s former family. His father married his mother in 1924, 14 years after the breakup of the first family. When his father was arrested in 1931, the Hebrew was only five years old. At that age, naturally, father and son did not speak about the former family. After a lot of hassle George Katys continued as a cosmonaut until 1969.  
By July 24, it became clear that on August 15 there would be no launch, and the training of the crew was extended for two weeks.

August 12 at the State Commission, Kamanin reported that Feoktistov was ready, but Yegorow ranked well below Lazarev and Sorokin. A sharp debate between industry and the military flared up in relation to KP Feoktistov. Without resolving this issue, the commission has scheduled the launch of the manned Voskhod on September 15–20.  
At the end of August, candidates had new problems. Katys and Egorov only “satisfactorily” transferred flights to weightlessness, and vestibular workouts did not bring any significant results. In this connection, on August 25 and 27, Kamanin tried to reconcile with S.I. Rudenko the proposals of the Air Force on the new (exclusively military) composition of the first crew: Volynov, Komarov and Lazarev. But the marshal did not agree with his arguments and said that Deputy Minister of Health A.I.Burnazyan was ready to give a written conclusion about Feoktistov's suitability for the flight.  
On September 14, a confidential conversation between S.P.Korolyov and N.P.Kamanin took place. They discussed the composition of the main crew. Korolev offered Komarov, Feoktistov and Egorov. Kamanin insisted on Komarov, Volyn and Lazarev. After a long conversation, Kamanin made concessions and agreed with Feoktistov’s candidacy. The question of a doctor remained open, since Kamanin was categorically against sending two citizens into space simultaneously.  
Skye - Feoktistova and Egorova. On September 18, at a meeting in a narrow circle, Chairman of the State Commission G. A. Tyulin again raised the question of the crew and proposed Komarov, Feoktistov and Egorov. Kamanin, having lost the agreement with Korolev, rejected the arguments in favor of this crew with a long speech and again proposed Volynov, Komarov and Lazarev. The discussion began, ending in a cry of the agitated S.P. Korolev: “The air force always puts sticks in the woods ... I’d have to prepare my cosmonauts investigators ...” Three days later, Commander Air Force K.A .Vershinin and his first deputy S.I.Rudenko agreed with the proposal of the State Commission on the first crew. Kamanin also informed about this decision  
only late in the evening.  
So the question about the composition of the crew of the first multi-seat spacecraft was determined.


	26. Project Voskhod:the technical description

The ships "Voskhod" had the same external dimensions and layout schemes (length - 5 m, diameter - 2.43 m), as in the "Vostok", and were produced in three versions.  
The first of them (3KV ships) was intended for the flight of a crew of three. To place the three astronauts in one cabin, we had to give up not only the possibility of their ejection, but also the rescue spacesuits. The astronauts in tracksuits were able to be placed only in the individual Elbrus armchairs (the development of the new chief designer of the No918 plant, G.I. Severin, who replaced SM Alekseev) in very uncomfortable postures — lying on his back with his knees bent to his chest. Yes, and the chairs were located steps.  
In order to soften the impact on the Earth when landing, the Elbrus chairs were supplied with additional  
body shock absorbers. In addition, a soft landing system was developed with two domes of main parachutes and propulsion engines located on slings. To enable them, a remote contact device such as a probe was developed. A backup engine weighing 145 kg was installed on the ship in the upper part of the SA. The 3KV spacecraft was also equipped with an additional orientation system with ion sensors, advanced radio and television equipment.  
As a result of these improvements, the ship’s overall reliability has decreased significantly:  
for example, due to the lack of ejection seats, the astronauts could not evacuate from the ship in the event of a launch accident and during the first 27 seconds of the flight.  
These improvements have led to an increase in the mass of the "Voskhod" (it was 5.32 tons) in comparison with the "East" (4.73 tons). In order to launch it, it was necessary to replace the third stage (block E) on a rocket 8A92 with a new, more powerful one (block I). It turned out a new PH 11A57, later named, as well as the ship, “Sunrise”.


	27. Voskhod 1:the first multi-seat spaceship

On October 4, both crews, members of the State Committee, Yu.A. Gagarin (deputy head of the CPC), AG Nikolaev (commander of the cosmonaut detachment) and many others on the An-10 plane arrived at the cosmodrome. Prelaunch training has begun. The astronauts continued to study the flight program calculated for one day. All seven, and especially Konstantin Feoktistov, understood that in this flight the risk for its participants was great. In addition to the design features of the Voskhod spacecraft, which reduced the reliability of the system as a whole, there was another serious problem: limitations on the mass did not allow the cosmonauts to provide a life support supply of more than two days. Thus, the possibility of the descent of the ship in the event of a brake engine failure due to natural braking was excluded. They would still take the risk. The start date was approaching - the tension was increasing.

On October 9, astronauts under the direction of Yu.A. Gagarin and E.A. Frolov carried out a “test” in the ship. And in the evening there was the first press conference, quite original, since Kamanin combined it with a game of tennis. Komarov answered the questions of the journalists. Sergey Pavlovich Korolev instructed the crew before the start of D. F. Ustinov in the Kremlin. but  
tennis was played by Feoktistov and Egorov. Then the astronauts changed ... Only the first crew participated in the press conference. The second crew, according to the established tradition, was kept secret and was not introduced to the press.  
In the evening, at a meeting of the State Commission, it was decided to launch Voskhod on October 12 at 10:30 am Moscow time.  
October 11, the export of the complex to the start took place. The cosmonauts of the main crew together with SP Korolyev went up to the ship, ostensibly for instruction. “Such as Feoktistov, instruction is not needed. He knew the ship with all its systems better than the Chief. I think Korolev was very worried, he was looking for a way to calm down, ”recalls B.E.Chertok. The telemetry system “Thrall” of the third stage was malfunctioning. The system had to be changed right on the rocket already installed on the launch pad.  
On the same day, N.P.Kamanin presented the communist relics to the crew commander Vladimir Komarov, a portrait of Karl Marx belonging to V.I. Lenin, a photograph of Lenin with Pravda in his hands and beauty. A bow from the banner of the Paris commune. These recipes were stored in the V.Lenin Museum in Moscow.

October 12, 1964 at  
10:30:01 AMF from the 1st platform of the Baikonur cosmodrome launched a launch vehicle 11A57, which put into orbit the world's first three-seat spacecraft Voskhod, manned by a crew consisting of: commander - colonel Komarov Vladimir Mikhailovich, research associate cosmonaut - Candidate of Technical Sciences Feoktistov Konstantin Petrovich, physician Yegorov Boris Borisevitch.  
During the launch, the first cosmonaut of the planet Yuri Gagarin maintained contact with the crew. Meanwhile, the Rubin crew began to perform the flight program. At the first turn, Yegorov conducted the medical control of the crew, then everyone had breakfast. At the 2nd stage, the astronauts sent greetings to the participants of the Olympic Games in Tokyo. On the 3rd and 4th turns, physiological studies were performed: blood pressure was measured, pulmonary ventilation, blood smears were taken. With the help of special tables, the performance of cosmonauts during the first hours of flight was investigated. At the 4th orbit, the astronauts dined. Then, according to the flight plan, Komarov tried to fall asleep. Feoktistov and Egorov carried the watch, negotiated with the Earth and you

G.A. Tyulin personally reported to N.S. Khrushchev, who had taken rest in Pitsund, and then L.I. Brezhnev, L.V.Smirnov and  
compiled experiments. Feoktistov observed clouds, determined their brightness and contrast with the help of devices, fixed transparency at different angles of illumination. Egorov studied the cardiovascular system and the vestibular apparatus first at home and then at Feoktistov. At the 6th stage, Vladimir Komarov manually oriented the ship before the landing, and Feoktistov recorded this process. Egorov at this time rested.  
A television session took place on the 7th and 8th turns. The faces of the astronauts were first seen on Earth; members of the State Commission were able to communicate with them.  
From the 9th to the 13th orbit, the ship was out of sight from the territory of the Soviet Union. Despite this, the spacecraft worked according to individual programs, resting alternately.  
At the 14th orbit, the astronauts transmitted the parameters of all the systems of the spacecraft and the reception. In his position as CapCom, Pavel Popovich made recommendations for manual control in case of automation failure. At the 15th orbit, Komarov again tested the manual control and orientation system of the ship. Feoktistov photographed the horizon, determined the performance using special test tables. Yegorov rested.  
The flight of a multi-seat Soviet spacecraft caused a huge resonance throughout the world. At the same time, because of the secrecy, even the appearance of the rocket or the new ship was not published, which caused the most incredible  
notable conjectures. The famous American “hawk” senator Barry Goldwater even called “Sunrise” the prototype of the Soviet “space battleship”.

On October 13, at eight in the morning, Korolyov decided to report to Khrushchev on the completion of the flight. He contacted Pitsunda and received Nikita Sergeevich's consent to land the ship. There was no need for this, the ship would have sat down anyway, but the politeness demanded it ... This was the last conversation of S.P. Korolev with N.S. Khrushchev, who had been removed from management by In a few hours.  
At the 16th orbit, at 09:55:39 UHV, the orientation system automatically switched on, at 10:18:58 over the Gulf of Guinea, the TDU was turned on for braking. Communication with the ship could not be established. At 10:25 a message came from the tracking ships “Dolinsky” and “Krasnodar” that the engine had worked for a specified time, and there had never been a connection with the ship ... Finally, a message came from the head of the search service for General A. I. Kutasina: SA descends on two parachutes. Soon information was received that the pilot of the Il-14 Mikhailov plane saw the SA on the ground, and next to it three cosmonauts waving their hands.  
The most risky Soviet space flight was completed successfully. From the landing site, the astronauts were brought by helicopter to Kustanai, and from there by Il-18 plane (this particular plane crashed five days later in Yugoslavia) was taken to Baikonur. The State Commission also gathered there.  
Everyone was waiting for the congratulations of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers N. S. Khrushchev, but he did not follow. In the second half of the day, G. Tyulina from Moscow called L.V. Smirnov and informed without announcing the reasons that there would be no congratulations.  
October 14 became aware of the displacement of N.S. Khrushchev. The State Committee flew to Moscow, and the cosmonauts remained at the proving ground to wait for a special invitation. Only on the fifth day did their solemn meeting took place in Moscow.


	28. Project Voskhod:flight preparation of Voskhod 2

April 1964, when the work on Voskhod was in full swing, the OKB-1 had an idea with the help of an additional sluice chamber to launch one cosmonaut into space. Work began in this direction.  
After thr successful triple flight,the OKB-1 forces were thrown into the realization of this priority goal: to go out into open space (according to the decree of 06/14/1964) earlier than the Americans on Gemini. KP Feoktistov returned from the flight to the design of the 3 CD ship.  
The manufacture and factory testing of two 3KD ships (with mannequins and for manned flight) proceeded fairly quickly. Already in February 1965, when checking the systems of an unmanned vehicle on Baikonur, the second set of the Tral telemetry system failed. It took 7 days to ship the equipment from Lvov and replace it. Because of this, the launch of “Voskhod􏰀2” “overshoot” from February 22 to the beginning of March.  
On February 17, it was decided to postpone the flight of the manned “Voskhod” to the second half of March, since  
On March 13, the launch of the AMS to the Moon was scheduled, and it was not possible to prepare two devices simultaneously.  
On February 22, 1965, at 10:30 am, the UHF from the 31st platform of the Baikonur cosmodrome launched a PH 11A57, which launched an unmanned “technological” sample of the 3KD No1 spacecraft, named Cosmos-57.  
The television picture with the image of the external door was extremely striking. Everything seemed to be going fine, but ... after the second turn, the ship "disappeared." Not a single signal came from it, no information was going through any telemetric channel. Missile defense equipment was also not detected by the ship in orbit ...  
When deciphering telemetry, it turned out that one of the gateway control commands (No42) was transferred to the board simultaneously from two ground control points (NPC-6 Elizovo and NPC-7 Keys). As a result of their imposition, the No5 command to the descent was formed in the decoder. The TDU turned on - and the ship began to land, and since the ship was descending in an unplanned area, a system of automatic undermining of the object worked.  
According to the results of the investigation, a technical decision was taken to protect the most important commands in the radio link. The flight of the technological ship made it possible to check all 3KD systems at the stage of launching and starting the flight, the airlock turned normally. But the end of the flight, the shooting of the airlock and, most importantly, the possibility of landing a CA with an annular frame from the fire gate (it came out at 27 mm) could not be tested. Therefore, it was decided to conduct such a test on the next photo-intelligence satellite of the Zenit series.  
On March 7, 1965, at 11:59 am, the UHF from the 31st platform of the Baikonur cosmodrome was launched the PH 11A57, which launched into orbit Zenit-4, which received the name Cosmos-59 after launch. An annular spur from the airlock chamber was installed on its SA.  
Within eight days, Zenit-4 performed its immediate tasks, and on March 15 its SA successfully landed 170 km south of Kustanai (50 km north of the calculated point). The landing took place normally, the presence of the frame had no effect on it. The path to Voskhod 2 was open.


	29. Project Voskhod:crew training for Voskhod 2

In fulfillment of the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the USSR Council of Ministers of April 13, 1964, which, among others, set the mission of the Voskhod spacecraft to go into outer space, it was necessary to form the crews. By this time, only Belayev, Leonov, Khrunov and Gorbatko (Bykovsky, Popovich and Titov, as flying cosmonauts, decided not to include the crews of Voskhodov in the group, but Komarov, Volynov and Demin from this group is planning  
entered the crews of the first "Sunrise"). It was these four in July 1964 that began the direct training on the Exit program: PI Belyaev and V.V. Gorbatko were in the post of commanders, A.Leonov and E.V. Khrunov left the post. But the preparation was short. It became clear that in 1964 the “Exit” would not take place, and on July 16 the four were sent on leave to Chemitokvadzhe. They started the immediate preparation on 15 August. Additionally, this group started training G.S.Shinin and D.A. Zaikin.  
By this time, the simulator ship 3KD was there. Victor Gorbatko recalls: “The trainings were carried out right on the flight ship. They did it, and at the same time we prepared and carried out, as it were, tests of this ship. I remembered that even the air in the cabin was pumped outside through the hose. And here this hose somewhere bent over ... As I didn’t gasp, I don’t know ... I don’t remember if I finished the training or all the people saw that I was suffocating. In general, when they dragged me from there, I bent down - and water flowed straight from the helmet. Poured a lot of water ... You know that in a spacesuit around the neck fits rubber. I was so addicted that there was a lot of moisture there. ”  
The astronauts in the Tu-104 aircraft laboratory in December 1964, where during short-term weightlessness, the whole process of entering and exiting the gateway, using the file for moving and other operations, was carried out very hard training. When training was in full swing, an emergency occurred. On December 22, Victor Horbatko's electrocardiogram showed blood in the teeth, indicating a serious disruption of the heart. As a result, on December 25, he discontinued the training and got into an in-depth examination at the Center. After long examinations, it turned out that the glands are to blame. After their removal, everything returned to normal, but time was lost. Gorbatko's place in the second carriage from January 3, 1965 was taken by Dmitry Zaikin.  
page. The crews performed a cyclogram of the exit and manual closing of the hatch.  
On February 9, the State Commission heard all four cosmonauts and approved the crews. On the same day, they were approved by the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, L.V. Smirnov.  
March 3, the final training session on the simulator ship held the main crew. In this preparation for the flight actually ended.  
  



	30. Project Voskhod:a technical description of Voskhod 2

Ship 3KD, in contrast to the 3KV, performed in a double version. Instead of three, two armchairs were installed, which were refined so that the astronauts in them would be in the “Berkut” spacesuits during the entire flight. In order not to depressurize the entire ship for a spacewalk (as Americans did at the Gemini spacecraft), a folding inflatable sluice chamber (HQ) was developed with a half-soft design with a sluice system  
the author of the scheme (S.I. Alekseev from the 9th division of the OKB-1). The sluice weight was 250 kg, the length in the unfolded state was 2500 mm, the outer diameter was 1200 mm, the inner one was 1000 mm, and the diameter of the outer and inner hatches was 700 mm. The gateway was fastened from the outside to the launch vehicle in the folded state by means of a frame and, after the ship was put into orbit, it was inflated on a command board from the console mounted in front of the seat  
commander. From this console, control over all the locking operations went on.  
For the television broadcast of the entire exit process in the Leningrad Scientific Research Institute-380 (director — I.A. Rosselevich) a new television system was developed, transmitting 100 lines (10 lines in the East) with 10 frames per second.  
The rest of the systems were similar to the 3KV ship systems.


	31. Voskhod 2:the first spacewalk

On March 9, the expedition of the Cosmonaut Training Center, together with the crews, flew to the training ground. On the same day, a meeting of the Air Force and the technical management of the launch was held at the second venue, at which the composition of the crews was again discussed. NPKamanin told about the results of the training and placed the cosmonauts according to the degree of readiness: Leonov, Khrunov, Belyaev, Zaikin. Pavel Belyaev was strongly opposed to the candidate, because a month ago, during a training session in the pressure chamber, he began to breathe, but quickly discovered the equipment malfunction and eliminated it. However, the experiment was frustrated. Despite this, Kamanin recommended not  
to change the main crew, since Leonov and Belyaev had been preparing for a long time together and worked well together. He proposed that Khrunov be approved as a doubler at the same time by both the commander and co-pilot, justifying this by the fact that he was much better prepared for both of their posts. As a result of the discussion, the crews decided not to change. Nevertheless, the next day, a decision was made: on the day of launch, only three astronauts were to wear space suits.  
March 11, the first crew made a training session in the ship. The second crew did not get to work in the flight ship - there was no time left.  
On March 12, the Luna station was launched for landing on the moon, and - unsuccessfully. The 4th stage of the rocket did not work, and the AMS remained in Earth orbit under the name "Cosmos-60".  
On March 13, the last crew control sessions took place. When they ended, Sergey Pavlovich said: “Well, friends, I guess I will be with you at the launch last time. “Origins” and “Sunrises” were too dear to me ... “ These words turned out to be prophetic. The piloted launch of “Voskhod􏰀2” was the last for S.P. Korolev. After 10 months he was gone.  
On March 16, the State Commission made a decision: to take out the Voskhod rocket-and-space complex at the launch of March 17 and launch it on March 18. In the evening of the same day, the State Commission confirmed the crews: the main commander, Lieutenant Colonel P. I. Belyaev, with Major A. A. Leonov going into space; the reserve is commanded by major D.A. Zaikin and leaving major E.V. Khrunov.

On March 18, 1965, the 3KD No4 spacecraft, called the Voskhod 2, was launched with cosmonauts Pavel Belyaev and Alexei Leonov on board. The weight of the ship was 5682 kg - 362 kg more than the mass of the Voskhod 1. 1 hour 35 minutes after the start,at the beginning of the 2nd turn,Alexey Leonov was the first in the world to leave the spacecraft, as Belyaev announced to the whole world: “Attention! Man went into outer space! A man came out into outer space! ”The television image of Alexey Leonov, soaring against the background of the Earth, was broadcast on all TV channels.  
Leonov was in space for 23 minutes 41 seconds, and outside the lock in open space - 12 minutes and 09 seconds. At that time, he was removed from the ship at a distance of up to 5.35 m. During the time of exit, his spacesuit was connected to the board of the ship with a special electric cable, since it was not completely autonomous.  
During the flight, the astronauts talked with party and government leaders who had gathered in the Sverdlov Hall of the Kremlin. A day later, on the 18th orbit, the ship landed in the Perm Region, and TASS announced the full success of the flight. The first spacewalk was conducted by Soviet cosmonauts 2.5 months earlier than Americans.  
In fact, during the flight there were a number of serious emergency situations that repeatedly threatened the lives of astronauts. Here’s how Alexey Leonov spoke about this: “Serious abnormal situations in my flight on Voskhod􏰀2,there were seven, three or four of them were deadly ...  
When a ship was created for spacewalk, many problems had to be solved, one of which was related to the size of the hatch. If the lid would open completely inside, it would be necessary to trim the bed. Then I would not fit in his shoulders. And I agreed to reduce the diameter of the hatch. Thus, there was a gap of 20 mm between each arm and between the skaffand and the edge of the hatch.  
On Earth, we conducted tests in a pressure chamber at a vacuum corresponding to an altitude of 60 km ... In reality, when I went into outer space, it turned out a bit different. The pressure in the spacecraft is about 600 mm,  
which is so strong. I tightened all the belts, but the spacesuit was so swollen that my hands came out of the gloves when I took the handrails, and my legs - from the boots. In such a state, of course, I could not squeeze into the airlock hatch. There was a critical situation, and there was no time to consult with the Earth. As long as I told them ... as long as they confer ... And who would take responsibility? Only Pasha Beliaev saw this, but could not help. And here I, breaking all the instructions and not related to the Earth, turn to a pressure of 0.27 atmospheres. This is the second mode of operation for the spacesuit. If by this time I did not have a leaching of nitrogen from the blood, then the nitrogen would boil and that would be all ... death. I estimated that I had been under pure oxygen for an hour and there should be no boiling. After I switched to the second mode, the whole thing fell into place. On the nerves, I put the camera in the gateway and, violating the instructions, went to the gateway not with their feet, but with their head forward. Holding on to the rail, I squeezed myself forward. Then I closed the outer hatch  
In the cosmic vacuum, the spacesuit was swept up, and neither the stiffener nor the dense fabric could stand. I, of course, assumed that this would happen. I started to turn around, because I still need to enter the ship with my feet. Otherwise I could not, because the lid opening inwards ate 30% of the cab volume. Therefore, I had to turn around (the inside diameter of the sluice is 1 meter, the width of the spacesuit in the shoulders is 68 cm). Here was the biggest load, my pulse reached 190. I still managed to roll over and enter the ship with my feet, as it should be, but I had such a delay that, breaking the instructions and not checking the tightness, I opened the helmet, not closing the hatch behind him. I wipe my eyes with a glove, but I cannot wipe them off, as if someone was pouring on my head. At that time, I had only 60 liters of oxygen for breathing and ventilation, and now the Orlan has 360 liters ... I first went out in history and moved 5 meters away at once. No one else did this. But with this file it was necessary to work, collect on hooks so that it would not dangle. There was an enormous physical load. The only thing that I did not do at the exit was not able to photograph the ship from the side. I had a miniature Ajax camera that could shoot through a button. They gave it to us with the personal permission of the KGB chairman. This camera was remotely controlled by a cable; due to the deformation of the spacesuit, I could not reach it. But I did the filming (3 minutes with a S97 camera), and two TV cameras constantly followed me from the ship, but they had a low resolution. On these materials then made  
very interesting film.  
But the worst thing was when I returned to the ship — the partial pressure of oxygen (in the cabin) began to grow, which reached 460 mm and continued to grow. This is at a rate of 160 mm! But after all, 460 mm is an explosive gas, because Bondarenko burned out on this ... At first we sat in a daze. Everyone understood, but they could do almost nothing: the humidity was completely removed, the temperature was removed (it became 10–12 °). And the pressure is growing ... The slightest spark,everything would turn into a molecular state, and we understood that. Seven hours in this state, and then fell asleep ... apparently from stress. Then we figured out that I had touched the boost switch with a hose from a spacesuit ... What actually happened? Since the ship has been stabilized for a long time relative to the Sun, then, naturally, a deformation has arisen; because on the one hand cooling to 􏰀140 ° С, with  
married. As a result, at a speed of 28,000 km / h, we sat down just 80 km from our calculated point. This is a good result. A backup landing sites then was not. And we were not expected there ... "  
Finally, the helicopter discovered parachutes and cosmonauts 30 km south-west of Berezniki, Perm Region, in the deep taiga of the Northern Urals, with a flight point for the 18th orbit at 368 km.  
“When we landed,” recalls A. Leonov, “we were not immediately found ... We sat in spacesuits for two days, we did not have other clothes. On the third day we were pulled out. Because of the sweat, my suit was knee-deep, about 6 liters. So in the legs and gurgled. Then, at night, I say to Pasha: “All right, I'm cold.” We took off the spacesuits, stripped naked, and squeezed the clothes. Then they sputtered the screen vacuum insulation. The entire hard part was thrown away, and the rest was relied upon. These are nine layers of aluminized foil covered with dederon. Above they were wrapped with parachute lines, like two sausages. And so stayed there for the night. And at 12 noon a helicopter arrived, which sat 9 km away. Another helicopter in a basket lowered Yura Lygina straight to us. Then Slava Volkov (Vladislav Volkov, future cosmonaut TsKBEM) came to us on skis and others. They brought us warm clothes, poured brandy, and we gave them our alcohol - and life became more fun. A fire was lit, the boiler was set. We washed. For about two hours we cut down a small hut, where we spent the night normally. There was even a bed there. ”  
On March 21, the helicopter landing area was cut down, and Pavel Belyaev and Aleksey Leonov with their ski escorts got to the Mi-4 helicopter. Soon they were in Perm, from where they reported on the completion of the flight to the Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee, Leonid Brezhnev. Evacuation of the astronauts was led by Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Belyaev, the cousin of the crew commander. On the same day, the astronauts returned to Leninsk.  
After the cosmonauts had a rest, they were met by Moscow on March 23. From the mausoleum, Leonov said very bright words: “I want to tell you that the picture of the cosmic abyss, which I saw, by its grandeur and immensity,  
The brilliance of colors and the sharpness of contrasts of pure darkness with the dazzling light of the stars simply amazed and fascinated me. Imagine this picture - against this background I see our Soviet ship illuminated by the bright light of the sun's rays. When I came out of the airlock, I felt a powerful stream of light and heat, resembling electric welding. Above me was the black sky and the bright non-blinking stars. The sun was presented to me as a red-hot fire disc ... "  
  



	32. Project Voskhod:the unflown missions

On February 8, 1965, when the preparation of “Voskhod-2” was nearing completion, S.P. Korolev sent N.P.Kamanin a flight schedule for future Voskhod missions:  
3KV No5 - start July-August 1965 with animals for 15–30 days;  
3KV No6 - launch September – October 1965 with the crew (commander and researcher) with an artificial gravity experiment, which is created by spinning around the center of mass of the ship and the third stage of the PH connected by a cable;  
3KV No7 - a flight in March-April 1966 with a duration of 15–18 days (a commander and a doctor), of which 3–4 days under conditions of artificial gravity. In the program - an operation on a rabbit in conditions of weightlessness;  
3KD No8 and 3KD No9 - manufactured in December 1965, the start time is determined later. Flight within 3-5 days. The crew commander and the co-pilot make 2–3 exits into space with a distance of 50–100 m and land in manual mode.

On February 19, S.P. Korolyov proposed N.P. Kamanin to prepare B.V.Volynov and G.P.Katys, doubles of the Voskhod crew, primarily for an experiment with artificial gravity. Kamanin agreed with Volynov’s candidacy, but he doubted Katys. No decisions were made, since everyone was busy launching "Voskhod􏰀2."  
On July 28, 1965, the decision of the Commission of the Supreme Council of National Economy of the USSR on military industry issues No156 was issued, which regulated the release of the Voskhod ships: No5, 6 and 7 — in October, November and October 1965; No8 and 9 – in March 1966. It was planned to carry out a record flight of two astronauts in terms of duration (15 days - the limit capacity of LSS);a building of artificial gravity and a complex of medical, physical, technical, and military research. The decision did not indicate the flight programs of each ship and their sequence.  
Following this decision, the Scientific and Technical Committee of the Air Force on August 30 developed a plan for the next flights:  
Voskhod-3 (3KV No6) —November 1965, two people fly 15 days, carry out an experiment on artificial gravity and military experiments. It was assumed that in flight the ship would be connected by a 50-meter cable to the third stage of the PH - block I. When this ligament was twisted around the center of mass, an artificial gravity appeared. The experiment was prepared in the third branch of the OKB-1 in Kuibyshev under the supervision of D.I. Kozlov;  
Voskhod-4 (3KV No7) —one astronaut puts a new record of duration — 25 days — and conducts military research;  
Voskhod 􏰀 5 and Voskhod 􏰀 6 (3 CD No8 and 9) will fly 15 days each in May 1966, during space flight there are spacewalks, as well as scientific and military experiments arguments. During the exits, the astronaut uses an individual means of movement, developed at the No918 (“Star”) plant.  
This Air Force offer you  
called the violent indignation of S.P. Korolev, since the demand  
Lo serious alterations already under construction ships. September, October passed, and the ship 3KV No5 was never ready. Only on November 24, S.P. Korolev officially admitted that the entire production of Voskhod was slowed down due to delays in the supply of equipment by subcontractors. He said that a series of thirty “Soyuzs” already ordered “fit” on the production of “Voskhov”, and stated that ships of 3KD No8 and 9, intended for going out into open space, will not be built; 3KB ships No5, 6 and 7 will be ready only in February-February 1966. Korolev transferred the experiment on artificial gravity from the unavailability of equipment to 3KB No7.

On March 8, 1965, N.P.Kamanin ordered the preparation of B.Volynov, G.T.Beregovoi, V.A. Shatalov, L.S. Demin, and Yu.P.Artyukhin to begin a 15-day flight on Voskhod􏰀3 (3KV No6) with artificial weight and for flight on 3KD No7.  
On April 2, from this group, for the flight under the military application program, Korolev and Kamanin formed the crews: Volynov – Katys, Beregovoy – Demin, Shatolov – Artyukhin. The flight plan included the construction of artificial gravity.  
On April 13, N.P.Kamanin discussed this decision with S.I. Rudenko, who insisted that he be the first, out of turn, to send Beregovoi in flight. Generally, Gagarin and almost all the flying cosmonauts expressed against Beregovoy and Shatalov's flights, as they came into the detachment later, and not all the astronauts of the first set had flown off ... Despite these objections, on April 17 Kamanin announced an order the beginning of the training of crews in these compositions. It was assumed that two out of three crews fly to 3KV: in October 1965, Volynov and Katys for 8–10 days with an experiment on artificial gravity. Then, in the first half of 1966, Beregovoy and Demin will fly to 3KV No7. Their program has not been defined.

Crew training began on May 3, 1965 with the expectation of launching Voskhod-3 in November 1965. Georgy Katys was actively engaged in the preparation of a military application. A part of the scientific equipment intended for work under the conditions of the cosmic vacuum should have been placed in a special hermetic airlock, bent into the ship’s cabin, together with a hemisphere with a porthole and a manipulator. On November 24, due to the unavailability of the experiment on artificial labor, as well as due to the delay in the preparation of military application experiments, Korolev suggested performing a flight of not more than 15 days but 20 cosmonauts for 20 days. (The reason was also the fact that the Americans had to fly the flight in 14 days.) But the Voskhod was designed only for 12–15 days. It took time to improve it, so the flight was postponed from December 1965 to January 1966. In addition, the question arose of replacing the crew. The leadership of the Air Force believed that it would be difficult for engineers and scientists (both military and civilian) to perform a 20-day flight and must be replaced. As a replacement,Katys was considered by Khrunov and Gorbatko, who remained out of work after canceling other Voskhod flights with exits. On November 30, Volynov was asked to choose one of the trained cosmonauts, Khrunoev, Gorbatko and Zaikin, on his own. He chose the Mountain Batko. Kamanin approved his choice: after all, it is very important with whom you are ready to fly for 20 days. Katys remained in the CPC, but he was already preparing in the third crew with Shonin. Artyukhin and Demina’s military engineers were generally removed from training, and Volynov and Gorbatko’s doubles were made by a new crew: Beregovoy – Shatalov.  
On December 3, 15-day tests of the regeneration facility began with the IBMP began. On February 10, the State Commission, chaired by G.A. Tyulin, decided to launch the dogs on the ship 3KV No5 for 20 days on February 22 or 23. 3KB No6 with the crew gathered to start up on March 20–23, 1966, and on February 17 the State Commission confirmed this date.

On February 22, 1966 at 23:10 UHF from the launch complex No2 on the platform 31 of the Baikonur cosmodrome, the 3KV No5 spacecraft was launched, which was named “Cosmos-110”. On board were the dogs Coal and Breeze. The main objective of the flight is to check on-board systems, as well as clarify the response of living organisms during long flight. The ship was put into high-apogee orbit (904 km) to check the effects of radiation belts on the health of animals. March 16, after 22 days of flight, he landed successfully. The dogs suffered a prolonged weightlessness excellent.  
February 24 and 25, the daily comprehensive training of the first training took place, then passed the exam and the second training. On February 28, the theoretical exams of the space school passed perfectly. Thus, the crews of Volynov – Shonin and Beregovoy – Shatalov completed preparations for a long flight, which was not the case with the unfortunate LSS. On February 25, in the IBMP, life support system tests were stopped on the 14th day due to a fall in the oxygen concentration and an increase in the carbon dioxide concentration to unacceptable limits. On the 16th day, tests were interrupted at the Zvezda plant.  
Thus, a 20-day flight in the intended time could not be conducted. In order to have time for revision of LSS (sealing of carbon-acid removal cartridges), on March 1 they decided to transfer the manned launch to the second half of April 1966.  
On March 12, 1966, the State Commission approved crews comprising: Volynov – Shonin, Beregovoy – Shatalov. On March 19, Kamanin discussed with the crew a list of personal belongings. At the request of Volynov, he allowed not to shave in flight and not to take the razor with him. On March 21, Kamanin held a meeting with journalists at which he outlined a flight coverage program. The start was nearing ... But the March tests of the LSS were again unsuccessful and stopped on the 19th day.  
And on March 27, a new unpleasantness occurred: the third stage failed (block I, the same as that of the Rising Sunrise) when the Molniya-1 spacecraft was launched. It took time to find out the causes of the failure and eliminate them, and the launch of Voskhod-3 in April became unreal. On April 13, during tests at the stand, Block I. collapsed again. The reasons were clarified, the cosmonauts decided to send to the Black Sea in Chetokvadzhe until the end of April. On May 6, the reasons were sorted out and the launch of 3KB No6 was scheduled for May 20–27.  
On May 10, 1966, 2 weeks before the launch, a meeting of the military industrial complex was held under the chairmanship of the Vice-Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers L.V. Smirnov. G.A. Tyulin, Chairman of the State Commission, V. P. Mishin, Chief Designer of the OKB-1, and N. P. Kamanin, the cosmonaut training director, reported that everything was ready for launch on May 25–28. Having heard the report, Smirnov spoke in favor of canceling the flight for the following reasons (as presented by N.P. Kamanin):  
\- a flight of 18 days will not give anything new;  
\- the implementation of the Voskhod-3 flight will delay the work on 7К􏰀ОК and in 1966 we will not fly on the Soyuz, and this is our main ship;  
\- a flight without a maneuver in orbit and without docking will show our lag behind the United States and will be perceived by the public as evidence of the superiority of the Americans.  
Many participants in the meeting were in favor of launching, as a result, the final decision on the flight of the MIC transferred to the State Commission: “... once again discuss the readiness for flight and set a start date ...”.  
At the State Commission meeting on May 12, there was no such unanimity. They demanded new tests of the I block, but did not make a decision about the launch. This deadline automatically shifted to July.  
In the following days, under pressure from L.V. Smirnov, the majority of the members of the State Commission changed their opinion and few people supported the Voskhod-3 flight. The State Commission was no longer convened on this occasion; no new date was set for launching.  
All forces were sent to prepare for the flight of the new Soyuz spacecraft.

In the fall of 1965, the group began training in the layout of the Voskhod ship, which was installed in IBMP, as well as working out the scientific and medical flight program. Intended program envisaged for February, start to prepare for the flight to 3KV. The information that the order of Kamanin was executed and Lazarev and Sorokin began to prepare was not detected. At the same time, the collection of new doctors for this program began. By September 22, the Managing Committee considered candidates for doctors. The candidates were Yevgeny Alexandrovich Ilyin, Aleksandr Alekseevich Kiselev, and Yuri Aleksanovich Senkevich (later - the famous traveler and host of the TV program “Traveling Travelers' Club”).

N.P. Kamanin believed that “Kiselev and Ilyin are stronger than Lazarev, and if there are no medical problems with them, then Lazarev from the CPC will have to be returned to the IAA and CM, and the doctors of the Ministry of Health should be prepared for the flight”. Later, it turned out that only V.G. Lazarev, instead of returning to the Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine, was included in the spacecraft crew unit. 

In the fall of 1965, the group began training in the layout of the Voskhod ship, which was installed in IBMP, as well as working out the scientific and medical flight program. The proposed program envisaged that during the 5 days of the flight the commander (pilot) and the doctor would conduct medical and biological experiments on themselves, and also for the first time in the cosmonaut cosmonaut the doctor would perform a surgical operation for the experimental animal - the rabbit. The candidate cosmonauts flew in the aircraft laboratory and, during a short-term weightlessness, operated on unfortunate animals, “filling their hands” and getting used to unusual conditions.  
On November 26, 1965, Korolev confirmed that the next flight after a long flight on 3KV No6 will be a doctor's flight on 3KV No7.  
In January 1966, all doctors were sent for a medical examination at the Central Air Force Institute. As a result, Ilyin, Kiselev and Senkevich were admitted to further preparation. For them, lodgements were made and flight suits were stitched at the Zvezda machine-building plant.  
The cosmonauts and doctors continued their training on the basis of the IBMP and were awaiting a call to the CPC to prepare for the flight as crew members. But the challenge did not stand. After the decision to terminate the Voskhod program, the training of doctors in IBMP in May 1966 was also stopped, and the group was disbanded. All three returned to their previous work at the institute.


	33. Project Gemini:an intermediate spacecraft

The first manned spacecraft targeting maneuvering in orbit. The first ship to reach and dock with another cosmic object. The ship, on which the astronauts learned to perform complex work in open space. All this is “Gemini”, remaining in history as a half-forgotten intermediate stage between “Mercury” and “Apollo”.  
As Mercury approached the flight test phase, NASA argued about what the next step in the manned cosmonautics should be. The “winner” was revealed in the summer of 1960 - a three-seat maneuvering ship of the new generation “Apollo”. In May 1961, this program acquired its final goal: an expedition to the moon.  
Between a single "Mercury", not capable of lunar fly by for days and the Apollo is landing on the moon. The main points of the “interim” program were formulated in disputes  
1959: 14-day flight, maneuvering in orbit, on-board navigation system, controlled descent and landing on land. In the spring of 1961, these plans again  
become relevant, and add to them the task of working out the meeting and docking for the lunar program.

In the meantime, in June 1961, James Chamberlin proposed a deep modernization of Mercury. He intended: to assemble most of the equipment into modules and move them outside the pressurized cabin, which would facilitate preparation and maintenance; to simplify the electric circuit and logic of the ship operation, by refusing the possibility of fully automatic flight and transferring the main functions to control the pilot; remove the SAS farm and use an ejection chair for rescue of an astronaut.  
July 28 at a meeting of the leaders of NASA and McDonnell Aircraft Corp. in St. Louis, at the insistence of the company and Maxim Faze, a fundamental decision was made: to work out the double version of Mercury. In fact, it was necessary to make a new ship - without increasing the diameter and length of the Mercury capsule it was completely unrealistic to place two astronauts in it.  
With detailed elaboration of the concept, it was decided that the double “Mercury” would be designed for a flight of up to 14 days. It will have an onboard navigation computer and a propulsion system for maneuvering in orbit, a radar and a docking device; fuel cells will provide the ship with electric power, and instead of a parachute landing system, an inflatable wing-paraglider designed by Francis Rogallo will be used. The launches will be carried out by the Titan-2 rocket (a specially modified version of a single-named combat ICBM created by Martin Co.) with  
start from Launch Complex 19 at Cape Canaveral. The radios of approach and docking in orbit will be the upper stage of the Atlas Agena B carrier, also specially modified.  
On December 7, 1961, the project was approved by NASA management, and on December 22, McDonnell received the decision to start the design.   
The twin ship was then called the Mercury Mark II, i.e. something like “Mercury of the 2nd stage”. Only on January 3, 1962, he got his own name - “Gemini.”

The first unmanned “Gemini” test launch at that time was scheduled for the end of July 1963. The second ship was going to be launched in September with two astronauts for 18 turns, and in 3 and 4 fields to reach 14 days . Eight flights to test convergence and docking were planned from March 1964.  
By January 1962, orders were prepared for 15 carriers of the “Titan-2”, 11 steps of the “Agena-B” and 3 docking adapters for them, but only for four prototypes and 12 flight ships. Officially, three sets of carriers were considered spare. But Gemini was made reusable, and three additional flights could be carried out using three ships again (or rather,  
their returned capsules).

The inflatable wing of the paraglider, which was made by North American, turned out to be a "sore spot" of the project "Gemini" - this development was not brought to use in flight. In May 1962, it was decided to use a parachute with a diameter of 25.7 m for landing the first flight of the ship. In October, due to the reduction in the budget of the Gemini project, the question arose of abandoning the paraglider. A series of failures in his tests led in April 1963 to the decision to use parachutes already in the six first flights. At the same time, James Chamberlin was removed from the position of the project manager of the “Gemini” project, and was replaced in the rank of “acting” by Charles Matthews. Tests of the paraglider with varying success went until the end of 1964, but as early as February, its use in the project was abandoned completely. Interestingly, on Cape Canaveral, for landing, Gemini managed to build a Skid Strip, which after the cancellation of the paraglider was “converted” into a conventional airfield. And the sea again became the landing place of Gemini.

A large amount of improvements of the “Mercury” systems for “Gemini”, slow development of onboard engines in the Rocketdyne company, insufficient funding  
The testing and the difficulties in flight tests of the Titan-2 ICBMs caused the failure of flight test periods and the change of their program.  
In July 1962, the first launch was decided to make a suborbital for a distance of 3,500 km to test the systems and verify the thermodynamics and design of the ship as a whole under conditions of maximum heat loads. In April 1963, this suborbital launch was delayed until July 1964, and the first manned flight was reduced to three turns and scheduled for October 1964. And another unmanned launch was added in front of them in December 1963. for the sole purpose of verifying the launch of “Gemini” by the carrier “Titan-2” into orbit.  
Further, the program envisaged: 4th flight in January 1965 with a duration of 7 days and the approach of “Gemini” with the same target dropped from it; 5th flight in April 1965, approaching the “Agena-D” stage; 6th flight in July 1965 with a duration of 14 days without a meeting in orbit; 7th flight in October 1965 again with the "Agena".  
By the end of 1963, it became clear that fuel cells would not be ready in time.  
to provide a 7􏰀 day flight of the fourth ship. As a result, his tasks were transferred to the 5th start-up (with a shift in the entire subsequent program), and for Gemini-4 they planned a 4-day flight on batteries without approaching the target. The actual course of the flight tests of the Gemini, despite new delays and failures, turned out to be close to this plan.  
In the second half of 1964, the possibility of carrying out Gemini flights beyond the planned twelve was again discussed. The Gemini program in Houston offered such exotic tasks as flying around the moon and going into orbit of its satellite, creating an experimental space station, intercepting the satellite, demonstrating rescue in space, and all - test paraglider. Some of them were rejected earlier, others later, and on February 28, 1965, it became known that three additional land-based landings were canceled and the order for the last three Titan-2 was formally canceled.  
Nevertheless, one of the "Gemini" still flew twice - but that's another story.


	34. Project Gemini:two unmanned starts

The first flight of the Gemini aircraft was delivered to the cosmodrome on October 4, 1963 and was tested in the AF hangar until February 12,1964. The first carrier “Titan-2” arrived at Cape Canaveral on October 26.  
A series of tests of the two stages of “Titan” ended with a fire test of each of them on January 21 at the launch complex LC-19. The rocket assembly took place on January 31, and on March 5 a ship was installed on it. The launch was planned for March 28, but the whole two weeks, from March 12 to March 25, took checks of electrical interfaces. Only on April 2, a test prelaunch countdown took place with the rocket refueling, and on April 5 it “gained” the flight plan.  
The launch of the first “Gemini” took place on April 8,1964 at 11:00:02 EST (16:00:02 UTC). The starting mass of GT-1 was 148.5 tons. The payload is 14 m long and  
with a mass of 5,170 kg — a bundle of the second stage and the ship — was launched into orbit with an inclination of 32.56 ° and a height of 160 to 320 km. The speed at the time of the termination of the 2nd stage was 7 m / s higher than the calculated one (7881 m / s) - and, accordingly, the apogee “rode” 21 km. Nevertheless, in 5.5 minutes the main launch task was completed: it was proved that this ship could be successfully launched by such a rocket. "And all?" - You ask. And there is a lot, if we consider that only to suppress the longitudinal oscillations of the Titan-2 rocket - pogo effect - to a level acceptable for piloted flight, a year has passed!

The ship “Gemini􏰀1” weighing 3187 kg was so simplified that it was not even planned to separate it from the 2nd stage. The onboard navigation computer, inertial measuring unit, life support equipment were replaced with mockups. Instead of the pilot’s seats, there were recorders of flight parameters — temperature and pressure in the cabin, accelerations and vibrations. The bottom heat shield was half the thickness: about 13 instead of 25 mm. Orientation and directional displacement engines were absent. Part of the equipment in the equipment section of the transfer compartment (adapter) was model, instead of fuel cells there were batteries, but three telemetry transmitters, a transponder and antennas were working.

Reception of information from the ship was carried out during the first three turns, and after 4 hours and 50 minutes after launch, work with “Gemini-1” was over. Having made 64 revolutions around the Earth, on the evening of April 12, the bundle entered the atmosphere over the southern part of the Atlantic and collapsed.  
The next day, Robert Gilruth announced that Commander Virgil Grissom and pilot John Young had been appointed to the GT􏰀-3 crew. Walter Schirra and Thomas Stafford became doubles. (Donald Slayton, who was now in charge of the selection and appointment of crews, intended to appoint Alan Shepard and Thomas Stafford to the first Gemini, but in the autumn of 1963 Shepard was suspended from flight preparation due to the disease of the inner ear.) The manned launch was scheduled for November 16, 1964  
The second test flight was planned for August 24, but Gemini was late, and all the forces of nature seemed to revolt against Titan. The rocket No2 arrived at the cosmodrome on July 11, and the tests of its two steps had already ended, when in a strong thunderstorm on August 17 a lightning struck near the launch complex. Induced charges have damaged many electrical components. For complete confidence, it was decided to replace on the rocket all blocks containing transistors. 

  
We did not have time to do this, as I had to urgently stop work: August 27 to Cape Kennedy unexpectedly came Hurricane Cleo. Further worse. On September 8, in anticipation of Hurricane Dora, both steps were taken to the assembly building. They passed through to Douro and Ethel, who was following on his heels, again took the steps to the start and, on September 21, began autonomous tests from the very beginning. They ended on October 5, after which they assembled the rocket, but for a long time they tortured them with test refueling. A joke was born these days that Martin Co. employees Now they are divided into “two teams - the Society of Wednesday refueling and the Society of Sunday refueling”.  
Ship No2 was delivered to the railing on September 21 and until October 17, it was tested and equipped in the NASA Industrial Zone on the Merritt Island, and since October 18th at the launch complex. Only on November 5, “Gemini-2” was connected to the carrier.

In the midst of trials, a sensational message arrived: on October 12, the Soviet Union launched the triple craft “Voskhod”, and on October 13 astronauts V. Komarov, K. Feoktistov and B. Yegorov successfully landed. America was once again “beaten” in space ... and what, I wonder, did she want when she was preparing a single launch for five months at the test site?  
An attempt to launch Gemini-2 was undertaken on December 9, 1964 at 11:41 EST (16:41 UTC) in the presence of Grissom and Young. The cyclogram provided a delay of 3.2 seconds between the inclusion of the 1st stage engines and the release of the rocket from the starting fixtures. After 1 sec after switching on the engines, the carrier control system registered a pressure drop in the hydraulic lines of the main thrust vector control circuit of the 1st stage. The reason was the failure of the servo valve of one of the four rocking drives of the engines. If the failure had happened two seconds earlier or three later, the start would have taken place on the duplicating system, but during the recruitment period of thrust, the signal to switch to the duplicating system would mean that the launch was canceled. The astronauts were convinced in practice: although their rocket is “stinking” - it uses toxic high-boiling fuel components - but it can shut down without exploding.  
After installing the modified 1st stage drives, the ship was launched on January 19,1965 at 09:03:59 EST (14:03:59 UTC). The flight mission included: checking the spacecraft's separation system from the launch vehicle, the Gemini-2 control system; verification of splashing tools.  
The “Gemini-2” weighing 3,122 kg was equipped with almost all systems, with the exception of ejection chambers and radar. The cockpit contained two dummies that simulated breathing and heat generation, as well as recording equipment and a movie camera, which continuously removed the horizon and orientation indicator on the console. Everything worked fine, except for an experienced electrochemical generator (ECG). Before the start-up, the hydrogen inlet valve did not open, there was no time to eliminate this malfunction, and the ECG was not switched on.  
Separating from the rocket, the device immediately turned around, dropped the equipment section and just after 7 minutes 16 seconds after launch, it worked out the braking impulse for de-orbiting. Exactly 11 minutes after this, the returned capsule successfully fell in the Atlantic 3422 km from the place of launch and 63 km from the calculated point. And so Gemini got a start in life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, the inertial measuring unit for the Gemini control system was made in St. Petersburg. Not in the city on the Neva, of course, but in that in the state of Florida.


	35. Project Gemini:a technical description

The double-manned Gemini spacecraft was created for working out the technique of meeting and docking in orbit, conducting research on the possibility of a person's prolonged stay in a state of weightlessness, and performing various medical, physical, and military experiments.  
During the development of the ship, the experience of the “Mercury” project was taken into account, the main task of which was to launch a person into orbit as soon as possible. The Gemini project focused on experiments in orbit. The new project was distinguished from Mercury primarily by the widespread use of manual control.  
“Gemini” consisted of two main compartments - a return module (VM) and an aggregate compartment (AO), also known as an adapter, auxiliary or transitional section. They were divided into five sections: the radio-locator, the reactive control system, the crew, the TDU, and the equipment. The largest diameter of the ship was 3.05 m, length - 5.79 m, starting weight - from 3226 to 3798 kg.  
The return module with the crew cabin was aerodynamically similar to the Mercury capsule,although it was larger in size: diameter - 2.29 m, length - 3.53 m. The astronauts' titanium pressurized cabin was inside the crew section and had a volume of 2.26 m3. The cab was located at the front of the spacecraft: the dashboard, controls and elements of the life support system (food, water, waste disposal system, breathing apparatus). Between the chairs there was a control knob. In the cabin ceiling there were two entrance gates with flat three-layer portholes embedded in them. The same hatches served to exit into open space.  
Unlike “Mercury”, where the entire capsule was saved with the help of SED, the “Gemini” used cushioned chairs. They provided for the rescue of astronauts at the initial part of the flight and during landing, replacing the reserve parachute. Two cylinders with an emergency supply of oxygen for breathing were mounted in the seat of each astronaut with altitude ejection.  
If an emergency had occurred at an altitude of more than 21 km, the crew could have separated the ship from the launch vehicle by switching on the brake engine installation (TDU).

The atmosphere in the cabin — purely oxygen, with a pressure of 0.36 kg / cm2 — was cleared of carbon dioxide and odor with lithium hydroxide and activated charcoal. The main supply of oxygen was stored in the form of boiling liquid under pressure in the tank of the equipment section of the AO, and the additional supply was in the cylinders of the cabin.  
Astronauts used three different types of spacesuits in the fields. All of them performed the functions of emergency rescue, and in spacesuits such as G4C astronauts also went into open space. During a long orbital field, astronauts could take off their helmets and gloves, and the G5C spacesuit could even be completely removed. The food, divided into portions for a single meal, was placed in bags of aluminum foil and polyethylene film in boxes next to chairs.  
Drinking water was stored in a cistern.  
To the bottom of the crew compartment on the ring,a flange was bolted to an ablative heat shield made of silicon rubber, which protects the VM at the entrance to the atmosphere.  
All the main equipment in the block version was located outside the pressure seal of the cabin. This facilitated its maintenance and replacement on Earth, but cooling in flight presented a problem: it could not be done by convection of the atmosphere. Therefore, the blocks were mounted on “cold” boards connected to the space radiator, the role of which was played by the lateral surface.

During the flights longer than two days, oxygen-hydrogen electrochemical generators (fuel cells, fuel cells) were chosen as the source of electric power for Gemini, which, with an equal capacity, was lighter than silver-zinc batteries. Due to the large mass and size of the TE, the system of cryogenic storage of oxygen and hydrogen had to be placed in an AO. During descent from orbit, the power supply of the onboard equipment of the VM was provided by four silver-zinc batteries in the crew section.  
Gemini was equipped with an inertial navigation system comprising a digital computer, a calculator and a stabilized platform (three integrating gyros and three pendulum accelerometers).  
To control the movement, 32 low-thrust rocket rocket engines operating on self-igniting fuel (monomethylhydrazine + nitrogen tetroxide) were installed on the spacecraft. The specific impulse of the LRE on this type of fuel is more than twice as high as that on the hydrogen peroxide used on the “Mercury”.  
16 engines of 100, 85 and 25 pounds (45.4, 38.6 and 11.3 kgf) were part of the OAMS orientation and orbital maneuvering system and were on the AO, and the fuel (180–420 kg) was stored in tanks in the equipment section.  
Another 16 engines of 25 pounds each were part of the RCS jet control system with a separate stock of components in the front cone of the apparatus. These gas-assisted liquid propellant rocket engines provided orientation and stabilization of the ship at the moment of switching on the TDU and control of the aircraft during descent.

In the TDU, four spherical solid propellant engines with a load of 1,140 kgf were used, which were switched on during the descent from the orbit sequentially. For emergency rescue in the active area, they could be switched on at the same time. The equipment section was reset before turning on the TDU, and the TDU section was reset after it was activated.  
The receivers and transmitters of the two-way radio communication system were located in the AO equipment section. The duplicated telemetry system provided data transfer rate of 51.2 kbit / s.  
The radar installed in the head section provided information on the viewing angles, range and approach speed between the ship and the KA-target in the range from 360 km to several meters, and also transmitted radio commands from the ship to the KA-target. The radiolocator worked in the L-band (390–1550 MHz) with a 25 ° directivity pattern. The antenna was made in the form of a grid of four spirals and was protected by a drop cover when it was removed.  
For the “Gemini” hitch with the “Agena” rocket, special coupling units were created to eliminate the recoil effect. A bundle of a “ship-rocket” formed after docking could maneuver in space.  
According to the original plan, it was assumed that the spacecraft would make a planning soft landing on land using the inflatable paraglider wing and the manufactured ski landing gear. Subsequently, due to the tightening of the paraglider tests, it was refused to use it, and the landing was performed only on water. Initially, a braking (stabilizing) parachute with a diameter of 5.5 m was deployed at an altitude of 15.2 km, then, at an altitude of 2.9 km, an exhaust parachute and, finally, at an altitude of 2.7 km, a main one with a diameter of 25.6 m, which provides splashdown with speed of 9 m / s.  
Gemini made controlled descent in the atmosphere using lifting power, which was regulated by changing the angle of heel. The necessary teams developed an on-board inertial navigation system and a computer.


	36. Gemini 3:test flight

On the evening of January 4, 1965, at the Cape Kennedy airfield, a container with the Gemini-3 ship was unloaded from the “belly” of the C-124 transport plane that used to be from St. Louis. The rocket was brought from Baltimore by two flights, on January 21 and 23, in the huge cargo hold of the Boeing 377 aircraft, this machine was prompted by the “pregnant guppy” for the fantastic form of the fuselage. Their tests were extremely fast, and already on February 17, the ship was on a rocket, and the rocket was at the start. This meant that the one and a half year break in the American piloted program was coming to an end.  
In February, Gus Grissom and John Young finished preparations for a test flight on Gemini-3. This mission has gone a long way to simplify: it was shortened from 18 turns to three in June 1963, transferred to power from batteries, removed the radar and eliminated the approach to the target in January 1964. The ship was different from the “Gemini-2” to many: the thermal protection was already standard thickness (25 mm), the third (exhaust) parachute was introduced into the parachute system, and the standard ejection seats were installed. Their trials, by the way, ended only on March 13, so that the third Gemini could hardly have flown earlier, even if its predecessors would not have been delayed so much. At one of the tests - January 16 - the astronauts participated in them as testers - the right-hand chair “shot” before the hatch was fully opened. “It hurt like hell, but it didn't last long,” recalled John Young.

From January 1963, Gus Grissom was in charge of an astronaut detachment for the Gemini spacecraft. He was constantly shaking from Hugheston to St. Louis, where they designed and built ships, and it was under him that the Gemini cabin was arranged, not paying attention to the astronaut's small stature. Young was only 5 cm taller, but it was enough that he didn’t fit in the “gasmobile”!  
For John, he had to make a more flat chair, and the following ships re-corresponded.  
After the half-daily mission of Gordon Cooper and five days of Valery Bykovsky, three turns did not look acceptable. Therefore, in August 1964, Gus and John came to the authorities with a proposal to fly for 30 turns, i.e. for two days; or, at least, not to interrupt the flight until Gemini-3 behaves normally. Their impulse, however, broke about two arguments: first, after the end of the third round, the command-measuring complex will not have enough communication areas with the ship, and secondly, old engines with a small resource.   
On March 4, 1965, the flight plan of “Gemini-3” was finally approved. The asrontates had to: check the ship and its systems in a manned version, the convenience of working in it, evaluate the updated command-and-control complex, conduct maneuvering in orbit, descent and landing in the given area. Three experiments were added beyond the test program, all three were developed for the failed MA-10 flight on the Mercury: a study of the effect of weightlessness on the development of the sea urchin roe (the first biological experiment in the American piloted program), the effect of weightlessness on the degree of radiation damage of blood leukocytes and the attempt to replenish the VHF communication during entry into the atmosphere by ejecting water into the plasma cloud.  
The crew decided to give the ship the name "Molly Brown", after the name of the heroine who was at the time on the Broadway of the Unsinkable Molly Brown musical. This was a hint at the fate of the first ship of Grissom, which lay at the bottom of the Atlantic.

The launch on March 23 took place at 09:24 EST, with a delay of 24 minutes, which was spent on fixing an oxidizer leak. The two 98-ton engines of the first stage worked for 155 seconds, and the 46-ton liquid propellant of the second — another 180. It was disconnected by the radio command at a speed shortage of 2.1 m / s. After waiting for 20 seconds, Grissom blew up the charge connecting the Gemini adapter to the rocket, and switched on two tail 100-pound engines for 15 seconds. So Gemini 3 was put into orbit at an altitude of 161.0x224.5 km.  
16 minutes after launch, Gus Grissom tested the orientation of the ship in different modes. After that, the valve of one of the engines of the canal of the canal was not completely closed; the oxidizer leaked, evaporated, and tried to deploy the ship. The hindrance, however, was weak and barely interfered with the ship's nose flying along the course.  
A second malfunction was noticed in the 20th minute — John Young saw the pressure arrow go down in the cockpit. He searched other devices with his eyes, saw several more abnormal values and realized that the power had failed; I switched to a spare converter, and everything returned to normal. It took only 45 seconds - that was when months of intense training took place.  
At this time, Grissom attempted to launch an experiment with caviar, but in the euphoria he put such effort on the handle for mixing that he broke it. The experiment, known as “urchin reproduction in space,” could not be carried out.

At the first stage, the program commander had to eat, and then it was time for the “homemade billet”. “Hey, John, do you want a sandwich?” Young asked ... and really pulled a contraband sandwich out of his pocket. Grissom appreciated the joke and bit off a couple of pieces - but then the astronauts saw crumbs of rye bread flying around the cabin and stopped the “experiment”, fearing their falling into the respiratory tract or the failure of the equipment, like Cooper. In flight, the troubles did not happen, but the story "floated" out and it came to Congress. Albert Thomas, Chairman of the Subcommittee for the Appropriations of the House of Representatives, repeatedly referred to the “$ 30 million sandwich” and reprimanded the NASA leadership for losing control over the astronauts.  
At the end of the first turn, the Carnavon station in Australia transmitted in digital form on board the correction data calculated by the Goddard Center ballistics. At 10:57 am EST over Texas, the commander engaged two front engines for braking. He tracked the speed increment over the indicator and after 74 seconds, when it reached the given 14.9 m / s, he turned off the engines. The first ever correction of the orbit of a manned space vehicle took place: Gemini-3 descended to an altitude of 158.4x169.0 km.  
At the 2nd turn, Grissom checked the work of the orientation system, and Young during  
55 minutes tested samples of cosmic food and bactericidal tablets for waste preservation. He tried dehydrated and frozen meat sticks with gravy and chicken pieces, orange juice, applesauce and grapefruit juice (powder, diluted with water), as well as cookies.  
At 11:42 am, over the Indian Ocean, Grissov deployed the ship sideways and conducted a series of maneuvers with nose and tail engines, and Yang filmed them with a movie camera. The result of this series was an increment of the velocity of 3 m / s and a change in the inclination of the orbit by 0.02 °.  
The third correction was introduced into the Gemini-3 flight plan only at the beginning of January 1965 in order to reduce the orbit's peri- the situation described by Martin Keidin in the novel Captive of Orbit could have happened in life.  
Data for this correction Goddard Center transmitted via satellite Syncom 2 to the ground station, and then they came on board. The speed increment coincided with that calculated on the on-board digital computer autonomously. Grissom swung the ship forward and at 13:45 he turned on the 100-pound engines for 109 seconds. As a result, the speed decreased by 29.3 m / s, and peregay dropped to 83 km.  
At 13:55, Grissom guided the ship for a regular de-assembly from the orbit, de-installed the equipment section and at 13:57:23 began braking. All four solid-propellant rocket motors worked, reducing the speed of the Gemini by 101 m / s. At 14:04 the ship entered the atmosphere “down the head” - in this position, astronauts saw the horizon and could control the flight. “There was a moment,” Yang told later, “when I saw the way we were wandering. It was a long funnel ... "  
Grissom carefully worked out the program of controlled descent: the two cranes, which he spent, mutually compensated. Nevertheless, the computer showed that “Gemini” was traveling with a distance of 110 km - as it turned out later, the aerodynamic quality of the return module incorporated into the model was overestimated.  
The jerk at the moment of the transfer of the capsule to the two-point suspension was very strong: Grissom hit the dashboard with a head mask and broke the glass, and Young scratched it. Gus later admitted that he decided that the parachute had come off.  
While the rescuers reached the capsule, swaying in the waters of the Atlantic, Virgil and John swayed. They asked - despite the flight plan - to evacuate them by helicopter and arrived at the Intrepid aircraft carrier at 15:28.


	37. Gemini 4:an astronaut in outer space

On March 23, when Grissom and Young made their three turns, Moscow solemnly met the new space crew - Pavel Belyaev and Alexei Leonov, who, on March 18, performed the first ever space walk from the board of Voskhod􏰀2 . This was another, and very painful, blow to the Gemini program and the reputation of the American cosmonautics. The fact is that the first spacewalk was originally planned for the GT-4 mission. The decision to master work in the spacecraft “Gemini” in outer space was made in March 1963. The pilot, in a specially modified spacesuit, had to leave through his landing hatch. At the same time, the commander remained in a depressurized cabin: even it was impossible to separate it with an airtight partition, not to make a special lock chamber. “Under exit” modifications were subject to ships starting from the 4th. In January 1964, a plan of exits was already drawn up and their tasks were scheduled for flights: at 4-m, the astronaut protrudes from the hatch to the waist, at 5-m it leaves and enters, at 6-m it takes out experimental equipment with the ship’s adapter, at 7th and 8th, learns to move with the help of handrails and halyards,  
On the 9th, it tests the installation of autonomous movement, and in the other three, other complex operations are developed.  
On July 27, 1964, two crews for Geminiем4 were announced: James McDivitt and Edward White, mostly and in backup - Frank Borman and James Lovell. Introducing them on July 29 at a press conference, Deputy Program Manager Ken Kleinknecht announced that for this flight one of the astronauts would open the hatch for the first time and go overboard waist-high.   
It should be noted here that in the USSR the decision to release the “Vostok” variant with a lock chamber was made on April 13, 1964, and on August 15 — two weeks after Kleinknecht’s statement — the training of crews began.  
When Gemini􏰀5 (Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad, Neil Armstrong and Elliott See) announced the pages of Gemini􏰀5 on February 8, 1965, information came to the press that Conrad would already go into space in this flight. This corresponded to the original plan, but ... by this time the first opening of the hatch was transferred to GT-5, and the full exit was planned only in the 7th or 8th flight.  
McDivitt and White (and they had known each other since college and studied together at the US Air Force test pilot school) continued to seek to entrust them with the first exit. They were able to accelerate the release of the prototype “output” spacesuit G4C; in October 1964, McDivitt tested it in the Gemini simulator, and at the end of December the spacesuit was transferred to official tests. The GT-3 crew, for which the “did not shine” out in any situation, also did a good deed. Having trained in the pressure chamber on November 15–19, Grisom and Young got permission to open the hatch at an altitude of 46 km above the plan ... and barely closed it — cold welding was performed in vacuum. They would not send Gus and John on this unplanned experiment, who knows - what would end the first American exit. On January 12 and 13, the crews of GT􏰀3 and GT􏰀4 were already working on opening the hatch of the Gemini cockpit in zero gravity flights.  
After Leonov,the preparatory work of Jim, Ed, Gus, and John was very helpful. On March 24, astronaut White not only opened the hatch, but also tucked his belt around during a planned training session at Chamber 4 in the McDonnell training center, And on March 29, Robert Gilruth, director of the Center for Manned Ships in Houston, gathered the leaders of key departments and asked the question: is it possible to make a full exit in the next flight? The answer was positive: the spacesuit will be ready by the deadline, and in addition, there is already a HHMU astronaut rocket propulsion device. Without waiting for Washington’s consent, the crew began to prepare for departure.  
On May 15, a suit of type G4C was certified. From G3C, in which Grissom and Young flew, it was distinguished by two additional face masks (including a light filter), an external thermal and anti-meteorite shell, and other details.

By the end of the month, 6 pieces of G4C had already been manufactured, and on May 19 they certified the rest of the exit equipment - the “ventilation control module” (chest bag), a nylon halyard and elongated oxygen supply hoses  
Gemini 4 crew: Edward White and James McDivitt obtained the device HHMU. And only after that, on May 25, it was officially announced that Edward White would go into outer space. Newspapers shouted that NASA was in a hurry and was taking unjustified risks. Indeed, they were in a hurry: the refinement of ground facilities for receiving data on the respiratory rate and ECG at the time of exhaustion was completed the day before launch.  
The Gemini 4 was launched on June 3 and became the first American ship to be operated not from Cape Kennedy, but from the new Mission Control Center in Houston. Christopher Kraft led the first shift of MCC operators, the second and third - Eugene Krantz and John Hodge - people who, after Gemini and Apollo, became no less famous than the astronauts themselves.  
The first task of McDivitt was a reapproachment with the 2nd step of the Titan. The speed of the Jemini separation was slow (1.5 m / s), and the task seemed simple. But while the commander turned around and set up an inertial platform, the Titan began to get ahead of the ship in orbital motion and also began to tumble. When they entered the shade and two flash-lamps on the steps became visible, Jim “pulled the gas”. He considered that the goal is still close and that it is possible to draw closer “underground”, without adjusting for the cunning laws of heavenly mechanics (“to catch up, exert yourself”), but nothing came of it. The commander tried to slow down, but neither he nor the pilot could “by eye” evaluate the range and relative speed. And besides, McDivitt was afraid of a collision.  
In the shade, he approached the step 90-120 m, but could not equalize the speed - and the objects dispersed. This pursuit took 62 kg of fuel - almost half of the total supply of 146 kg. At the end of the first turn, Kraft and McDivitt conferred and decided to leave the step alone.

Spacewalk was planned over the United States at the end of the second revolution. It was assumed that the ship and the step would fly side by side, White would fly up to her and touch its side. The unsuccessful “chase” changed the exit plans and frustrated the training schedule: White tried very hard, but did not have time. McDivitt decided to postpone the exit for 1.5 hours. At 19:15 they were allowed to vent the pressure from the cabin, and at 19:27 the sensor in the cockpit showed zero. At 19:34 White opened the hatch lock; under the pressure of the remaining air, the cover moved 10 cm and stopped.  
Having coped with the excitement (his pulse was 184), Ed opened the hatch and at 19:36 he got into the seat and leaned out on his belt. A halyard of complex construction connected it with a ship: a nylon cable with a diameter of 13 mm plus an oxygen supply hose, a telephone line, and four telemetry wires. An emergency supply of oxygen was in the chest pocket.  
McDivitt handed him a color movie camera, and White, breathing heavily, mounted it on the ship's adapter bracket. Next - a protective rubber ring on the edge of the hatch. At 19:46, the Gemini􏰀4 pilot took the HHMU rocket launcher in his right hand, turned it on, and swam out of the sunroof: “Okay, I am separating from the ship ... Okay, I went out ". James McDivitt shot it with a hand-held movie camera.  
White flew forward to the bow of the ship, then went up, but not even leaving the full length of the halyard (7.6 m), he braked and waved his hand at the commander; he fell over on his back and straightened again, and then returned to the ship. Noting that White’s movements were misaligning, McDivitt began to manually stabilize the Gemini 4 ... It was good that Ed noticed the engine exhausts in time and was able to dodge them. He “swam” to the commander's window and ran a glove over it - a dusty mark remained on the glove.  
HHMU's working fluid was enough for four minutes. After that, White had to pull up on the halyard and kick off the ship. He was being carried all the way up, and once Ed even flew into the tail of the Gemini. He managed to look at the Earth and said that certain details are better visible than when flying in the stratosphere.  
At 8:02 p.m., the commander gave White the order to return to the cockpit. “I don’t want to, but I’m coming back,” Ed said. He spent a few more minutes removing the camera from the bracket, removing the protective rings and the halyards, and, having been overboard for 20 minutes, sank into his chair at 20:06. “It was the saddest moment in my life,” the pilot said, unaware of the challenge ahead of them. But the Earth generally found out about everything only after two hours.

Here's what happened: McDivitt tried to close the hatch above his friend's head - and could not do it! The hatch did not fit snugly, and the quick-release lever, which set in motion the ratchet and dogs of the castle, turned around. With the hatch open, the death of the crew was inevitable!  
Already together, Ed and Jim clung to the hatch, pulled with all their might - pressed, closed! This happened at about 20:31. Thus, McDivitt and White spent 64 minutes under vacuum, and the hatch was fully open for about 32 minutes. Naturally, the second opening of the hatch (planned to throw away the satchel, halyard and HHMU) was not carried out, and it took three hours to build all this stuff anywhere in a cramped cabin.  
Then, on Earth, they realized that in a vacuum the coils of the hatch spring were welded - just like Grissom and Young had in their November training. (As it turned out later, they were initially coated with molybdenum grease. A few days before the start, it seemed to someone that there was too much grease, and they had been cleaned - but overdone!)  
The main objective of the flight was, however, not an optional test, but 4-day tests of the ship's systems and its pilots. People withstood it, although the specified mode of operation — the alternation of 4 hours of sleep and 4 hours of work — turned out to be extremely unsuccessful. Astronauts have inflamed eyes. Twice, June 6 and 7, McDivitt was forced to take off his helmet for an hour, which put pressure on his head and a protrusion on one side. By the end of the flight, 7 kg of fuel remained on the “Gemini-4” ...  
The program included 11 experiments, including two on the instructions of the United States Department of Defense - measurements of the proton and electronic components of space radiation and navigation measurements using a manual sextant. McDivitt and White observed the Earth (including illuminated buildings and airfields on the night side) photographed a lot with the 70-mm Hasselblad camera. In particular, they discovered and photographed the ring structure of Rishat in Mauritania, shot typhoon Beib and hurricane Victoria, saw the burning of meteors in the atmosphere and twice the aurora. The electrostatic charge of the ship was measured (including at the 35th revolution - over the working radar of the SPADATS system). White at the 51st revolution took pictures of the light from the operation of onboard engines.  
At the 20th revolution, astronauts observed a satellite of a cylindrical shape withphotographed it several times, but failed to identify the object by photographs. The commander saw two more satellites at a great distance.

The ship withstood four days not bad - if we recall that not one of its predecessors flew more than one and a half. For the first two days, Gemini􏰀4 was drifting, orienting itself only for communication with the Earth, because there was so little fuel! On the morning of June 5, the MCC allowed McDivitt to “carefully” consume supplies for experiments with the orientation of the ship, and on June 6 - to take photographs of the Earth’s surface and clouds without restrictions, as well as to test orientation modes in the interests of the Apollo program.  
The only serious malfunction occurred on June 6 at 48 m. The crew checked the data for descent from the orbit, entered into the on-board computer from the Earth in automatic mode. The data turned out to be correct, but the machine refused to work after checking. Therefore, at the 55th revolution, it was decided to land in the ballistic descent mode.  
Like Grissom and Young, the crew of Gemini 4 performed a maneuver of the preliminary reduction of perigee to 77 km. On June 7, at 4:56 p.m., the commander already carried out regular braking with the help of the solid propellant rocket engine, and, having passed the atmosphere with a maximum load of 8 g, the capsule splashed down in the Atlantic with a shortfall of 81 km. After 34 minutes, the astronauts switched to a helicopter and were soon delivered to the Uosp aircraft carrier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The world's first HHMU handheld maneuvering unit was developed by the Harold Johnson group in Houston. The pistol mount, weighing 3.4 kg, contained 0.32 kg of working fluid (oxygen) in two cylindrical cylinders at a pressure of 280 atm. Jet nozzles — two with a thrust of 0.45 kgf each and one with a thrust of 0.9 kgf — could give the astronaut a velocity of up to 1.8 m / s. A 35􏰀mm camera was built into the HHMU handle for capturing the Earth, stars and the ship.


	38. Gemini 5:eight days or bust

Flight "Gemini􏰀4" became a breath of fresh air for Americans. Although the rapprochement was not successful, there was confidence that it was possible to fly for a week or two. There were proposals to conduct rapprochement with the Agena rocket stage in the Gemini􏰀5 flight and another spacewalk. But this meant an exorbitant load on the crew: Cooper and Conrad were already working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, trying to finish preparations by August 9th.  
The debate went on for a long time, but on July 12, the exit was excluded from the flight program, and then they “recaptured” the meeting with Agena. Instead, on July 22, a pilot parallel prelaunch countdown was carried out: on the LC-19 complex there was a rocket with the Gemini-5 ship, and on the LC-14, the Atlas carrier with the GATV-5001 target. Finally, the launch was postponed for 10 days, and the flight was extended from 7 to 8 days. Eight days together in the volume of the telephone box and in the spacesuits G4C, which were never replaced by lighter ones!  
The pilot Pete Conrad invented the very first emblem for Gemini 5: a van of pioneers of the American West with the inscription on it: “Eight Days Or Bust”, i.e. "Eight days or failure." The sketch reached Jim Webb, who demanded that the excessively ambitious words be removed. The tradition of making emblems has taken root; retroactively they were made for previous flights.  
The first attempt to launch Gemini􏰀5 was on August 19th. There were many problems, and it ended up due to a lightning strike, a voltage jump occurred on the main power supply line of the starting complex. The software engineers could guarantee that the contents of the memory of the onboard computer were preserved, but there was no time to check.

On August 21, 1965, Gemini􏰀5 started exactly on schedule and entered an orbit 161x347 km high. The main task of the first day was to test the radar, first installed on board the Gemini, and the approach to the target satellite REP, simulating a meeting with the Agena-D rocket. However, only the first correction in the 56th minute, when Cooper raised the perigee by 10 km, went according to plan.  
And then troubles began with fuel cells. These fundamentally new sources of power supply, also called electrochemical generators (ECG), were chosen by the Americans to power the Apollo lunar spacecraft. The essence of ECG is in the generation of electricity with a controlled combination of hydrogen and oxygen. Two sections of fuel cells (FC) stood at Gemini􏰀5, providing a current of 45 A at an output voltage of 27 V, and the crew had to test them for the first time in flight.  
A few minutes before the correction, Conrad detected a drop in the pressure of oxygen coming from the tank to the pressure regulator in front of the fuel cell module. The tank heater did not work, the pilot tried to turn it on manually, but it did not work: somewhere in the circuit there was a short circuit. Christopher Kraft decided to start testing the radar as soon as possible, and already 2 hours 13 minutes after the start, Cooper removed the satellite target REP in the lateral direction. Over the next three turns, Gemini􏰀5 was supposed to first go 80 km back, and then again draw closer to the sub-satellite.  
Gordon and Pete successfully tracked the REP flight for 43 minutes using the radar, and during this time it traveled about 1.5 km. The pilot shot the target with a movie camera and a camera. But the pressure in the tank continued to drop and reached already 12.5 atm instead of the normal 60 atm. This was the lower working limit of the pressure regulator, and Cooper, having no connection with the MCC at this time, was forced to interrupt the experiment and begin to shut down the ship's systems. The REP remained close to Gemini􏰀5 for 8 hours and once came so close that the flashes of its light beacon illuminated the ship. However, the power supply of the device was designed only for 6 hours of operation.

At the last Mercury, one did not separate, and the other barely managed to be found. Now, complex maneuvers were thwarted, for which the astronauts had been preparing for a long time and hard — the spacecraft entering the coelliptical orbit and “intercepting” the target.  
But this was later, and on the 3rd turn the oxygen pressure dropped to 6.7 atm. Preparations began for emergency driving after six revolutions: if the pressure reaches 1.6 atm, the fuel cells will stop, and there will not be enough chemical batteries for a long time.  
Search service vessels were already heading for the splashdown area, and Cooper and Conrad, on the orders of Christopher Kraft, turned off one of the two fuel cell sections and all the “excess” Gemini􏰀5 airborne systems, reducing consumption to 10–12 A. At the end 3rd revolution, 4 hours 22 minutes after the start, the pressure in the oxygen tank stabilized at around 4.6 atm, which allowed to extend the flight to 18 revolutions. And 12 hours after the start, the astronauts began to slowly restore the de-energized systems: they recorded the electronics of the orientation system and even began photographing the Earth.  
On August 22, it turned out that the pressure was growing at 0.35–0.7 atm per day and that planting could be delayed. On this day, the second section of the fuel cell and most of the on-board systems were switched on again. The idea was born to hold a meeting with REP using the ballistic data of the Air Defense Command, but the calculations showed that the fuel consumption for maneuvers would be too large.  
Instead, they conducted two separate experiments. In the first, the Gemini􏰀5 radar operated at ranges from 555 to 315 km using the REP spare transponder installed at the Kennedy Center in Florida. The second took place on August 23 at 32nd, 33rd and 34th revs. Cooper successfully worked out a series of approach maneuvers with a target of up to 30 km with only one feature: the target was imaginary, or, as they say now, virtual. Only the impulses of the start and end of the interception were not made: there was not enough spent fuel.

Faults continued to persecute Gemini 5 in the following days. So, on August 23 and 24, the temperature control system failed, and the temperature in the spacecraft fell to 10 ° C. Astronauts managed to cope with the problem, but it was cold until the end of the flight.  
The first major repair in orbit was carried out by Gordo Cooper. On the morning of August 23, astronauts discovered a failure in the illumination of the pointing device of the main camera. This equipment was intended for the D􏰀4 and D􏰀7 experiments on observing in the infrared range the flares of ballistic missiles and background objects and was a 35 mm Contarex camera with a long-focus (1270 mm) Questar lens. On the evening of the same day, Cooper almost completely disassembled the pointing device, replaced the power cord with a similar one from the Conrad remote control, and everything worked. On August 24 and 25, the crew observed launches of the Minuteman-1 ICBM from the Vandenberg air base, as well as the engine torch during fire tests at the Holloman air base. The goals of the background were Vega, the Moon, and the surface of the ocean.  
Given the sensational reports of Cooper, who saw in flight detached houses and steam locomotives, a whole series of special character recognition was planned on two ground ranges (in Texas and Australia) and on the deck of the vessel of the Lake Champlain search complex. Mostly Conrad did this, but not very successfull. In total, the crew was scheduled 17 experiments - from assessing the state of the cardiovascular system to photographing the zodiacal light and shooting Cuba, China and Vietnam. Incidentally, from the pictures of Gemini 5, a volcanic region was discovered in the north of Mexico, about which the government of this country was not even aware!  
On August 25, orientation engine No7 failed, and on August 26, also No2 orientation. They had to go to a drift and cancel all experiments that required the orientation of the ship. In the following days, four more engines failed, fuel cells were unstable, and it was difficult to sit in spacesuits, even with helmets and gloves removed. Nevertheless, every day the flight was extended for another day: 8 days or a failure! Cooper regretted not taking the book with him: the crew escaped boredom only with a six-hour daily cleaning ... They made conversation with Scott Carpenter, who was in the Sealab-2 underwater laboratory off the coast of California.  
Hurricane Betsy came to the main landing area, and it was decided to land Gemini􏰀5 a turn earlier. Taking into account the unreliable operation of maneuvering engines, Kraft allowed using one of the collectors of the RCS landing orientation and stabilization system for stabilization. On August 29, at the 120th orbit, the ship successfully left orbit ... and on the descent the computer showed that they were coming with a long flight. This information was incorrect and appeared due to an error in the PC computer program, due to which incorrect braking data were put on board. Without knowing this and trying to reduce the lifting force, Gordon Coooer increased the roll from the calculated 53 ° to 90 °. As a result, the ship was landed with a shortage of 168 km from the calculated point!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The active REP target was designed to work out the Gemini rapprochement with the Agena stage using the ship's onboard radar and a transponder on the target from a distance of 80 km. Two transcripts of its name are known: Rendezvous Exercise Pod (container for meeting exercises) and Radar Evaluation Pod (for evaluating radar). A satellite weighing 29.5 kg and a size of 53x36x91 cm at launch was located in the rear of the adapter and separated by springs. Three antennas were installed on the REP: a dipole antenna at the “short” end of the spacecraft and two helical ones.  
> The Gemini􏰀5 interferometric radiator had one emitting antenna and three receiving antennas located in the form of the letter G. In combination with the transponder on the target and using the on-board computer, it allowed determining the range, azimuth, and angle locations, linear velocity and angular velocity of the line of sight. Range and relative speed were given out on a special indicator, and the computer calculated the necessary corrective pulse from the radar data.


	39. Gemini 7 and Gemini 6:a meeting in orbit

Just a few months ago, NASA doubted whether it would succeed.  
conduct another manned flight in 1965. Gemini􏰀5 proved that it was quite possible to prepare a launch in two months. Finally, shipbuilding began to flow, and most importantly, Lockheed and Bell Aerosystems specialists managed to “bring to mind” the Agena􏰀D target and its propulsion system. At least they thought so.  
The flight of “Gemini􏰀6” with the first junction with the arrival of “Agena-D” was scheduled for October 25–26, and the 14-day mission “Gemini􏰀7” - for December 9–23. On April 5, it was announced that Walter Schirra and Thomas Stafford would fly on the Gemini-6. On July 1, the Gemini􏰀7 crew was also named - it included the Gemini􏰀4 understudies Frank Borman and James Lovell. The backup crew included Virgil Grissom and John Young, Edward White and Michael Collins.  
The main task of “Gemini б” was to get closer to the target of “Agen􏰀D” at an altitude of 257 km and dock with it on the 4th turn. For this, a missile stage with serial number 5002 was allocated. The 5001th tested before it did not pass military acceptance and was left as a spare for use on a future mission, however, the 5002th product was not fully trusted. And although Wally Schirra insisted on using the step "in full" with the inclusion of its marching engine and a change in the plane of the orbit of the ligament, this maneuver was removed from the flight plan. It was also assumed that Tom Stafford would go out into outer space and take off the panel for recording micrometeorites from the Gemini-6 adapter - they also refused this. The main and only task is to get closer and dock. The estimated duration of the flight is at best two days.  
October 25 at 10:00:04 EST Atlas with target No5002 was launched and after 303 seconds brought it to a given point in space. Re-entry into a circular orbit was the business of “Agena” itself. Her engine turned on at the 367th second ... but on the 375th telemetry from the side stopped, and five separate targets appeared on the radar. It means that the stage exploded. The launch of Gemini 6, scheduled for 11:40:45, had to be canceled; Shirra and Stafford left the ship.  
The cause of the explosion was the abnormal start of the engine: he “did not like” the new start-up sequence with the accelerated supply of fuel to the combustion chamber. Now it took several months to return to the old version and test the engines with fire tests. Well, Bourman and Lovell fly in December for 14 days, and then? How long will the accident delay the program, how and when will the main task of Gemini be fulfilled - meeting and docking?

An idea came to Walter Burke, vice president and general manager of spacecraft and rockets for McDonnell firm. “Why couldn’t we use Gemini 7 as a rendezvous target for Gemini 6?”,he asked his deputy John Yardley. Borman and Lovell, the pilots of the Gemini 7, who were present during the conversation, agreed immediately, but Frank Borman categorically rejected two ideas, since they could interfere with the 14-day flight. First, the installation of a docking cone on the bow of his ship, and therefore the ships could only get closer, but not dock. Secondly - the transfer of the pilots of Lovell and Stafford through outer space.  
To convince colleagues that it is possible to carry out two launches of the Titan-Gemini system with an interval of several days and that it is possible to control two ships at the same time, or rather alternately, was not easy. It took all day on October 26; on the next day the NASA executives as well supported the idea,and on October 28, the press service of President Johnson announced the upcoming joint flight of two ships. The launch of Gemini 7 was scheduled for December 4, and Gemini 6 for December 13.  
On October 28–29, the Gemini-6 rocket and ship were removed from the launch line and placed under guard in different buildings of the Kennedy Center. On October 29, the assembly and testing of the GLV􏰀7 rocket and the Gemini􏰀7 spacecraft began. The latter required further development: navigation lights, a radiolocation transponder, and a spiral antenna were installed on it. November 22, after autonomous tests of the ship mechanically docked with the rocket, and on November 27 a flight simulation was held.

On December 4, at 14:30 EST (19:30 UTC), the Gemini-7 spacecraft with a mass of 3663 kg was launched and after 337 seconds entered the orbit with an altitude of 161x330 km. The main goal of Frank Bormann and James Lovell was to fly 14 days - the time sufficient to carry out a full valuable lunar expedition, and to prove that such a flight duration does not constitute a danger to humans.  
Immediately after separation, Frank unfolded the ship with his nose to the 2nd stage of the launch vehicle, balanced the speeds with a 5-second pulse and performed a joint flight for 15–17 minutes at a distance of 15 to 45 m. Borman did not approach closer: She squeezed, the remaining fuel flowed from her tanks, broke into drops and froze in the form of snowflakes. It was very beautiful ... but the commander was afraid to encounter a step in the shade, although it was equipped with four powerful flashing beacons. Keeping at an “almost” distance turned out to be easy, and only 7 kg of fuel was spent on a “flight by formation”. McDivitt failed in Gemini 4 because he started approaching too late. At 19:53, the experiment had to be terminated because the fuel cells began to lag, like Cooper and Conrad did. The pressure in the fuel tank of the fuel cell dropped to 8.4 atm, but it was possible to correct the situation by bypassing the vapor from the oxygen tank of the SJO - it is good that such a possibility was provided after Dzhemini возможность5. At the same time, the failure signal of the 2nd battery of the fuel cell lit up. In general, fuel cells provided their portion of problems, mainly due to the ingress of water into them and the need for cleaning. At the end of the flight, two of the six “machines” showed significant degradation and were turned off, and four had to complete the flight.

On the 3rd turn at 18:18 EST, Bormann oriented along Spica and lifted the Gemini􏰀7 orbit to 222x322 km, and on December 9 the ship was transferred to the waiting orbit 299.6x302.1 km high.  
Bormann and Lovell were scheduled to conduct as many as 20 experiments, mainly medical ones, which they started half an hour after the start - despite the “increased pressure in the head, as if hanging upside down”. Among the experts of a scientific, technical and military nature were D4 and D7, which were already familiar to us, but with a new UV spectrometer, experiments on stellar navigation (one of them was not performed due to equipment failure) and, as usual , photo􏰀 survey of the Earth and clouds. Perhaps, the most interesting experiment was the laser communication experiment with the White Sands, Kauai, and Ascension islands ground stations. Having discovered a laser beacon on Earth, Lovell had to turn on the onboard laser transmitter and dictate numbers into the microphone. The experiment was not successful: either cloudiness interfered, or from the Earth they did not see a signal from the ship. On the other hand, astronauts photographed in the infrared range the launch of Polaris A3 missiles from the submarine Benjamin Franklin and Minuteman 1 from Vandenberg.  
Bormann and Lovell did not have to get bored - everyone took a flight on a book, but not one read to the end. Life in a 14-day flight was organized almost “humanly”. The astronauts persuaded the flight managers to abandon the constant duty and allow them to sleep at the same time. Working hours - before and after lunch - were planned for the same hours as in Houston. Capcom Elliott See read the news every day.  
The crew took off in new, more comfortable spacesuits. The G4C model, which Cooper and Conrad were forced to wear, weighed 10.7 kg, and the new G5C spacesuit only 7.3 kg. The fiberglass helmet and rigid sealing gate were replaced by a soft “hood” with an integrated sight glass attached by a tight “lightning”, and the rest of the structure was lightened. The boots were made removable. Even after spending 40 minutes one could get out of this spacesuit in the cramped cabin of the Gemini. Astronauts intended to take off their spacesuits on the second day of the flight, but it seemed too dangerous to George Miller and Robert Simans. And the life support system did not work in the best way: the temperature in the suits either decreased to + 4 ° C, or rose to poorly tolerated. It was hot in the cockpit.  
Lovell was allowed to take off his spacesuit at the 45th hour of the flight, and Borman sat sweating and complaining. On December 10, astronauts exchanged "roles", and on 12th, their bosses finally surrendered and allowed both to sit without spacesuits, to which Borman replied with joyful "Hallelujah!”

On the 9th day of the flight, the on-board tape recorder for data recording failed, and on December 16 the orientation engines No. 3 and 4 were disrupted. In the rest, “Gemini 7” worked well.  
At Cape Canaveral, a second launch was hastily but carefully prepared. Already 24 hours after the start of the Gemini 7,the second rocket and the ship were at the start. Repeated tests ended on December 8th. During operations, a part of the memory of the on-board computer was quickly corrupted due to a power outage, which was quickly replaced. On December 8–9, a flight simulation was held. The launch was scheduled for December 12 - a day earlier than the biggest optimists had hoped. (Did the leaders of the American program know that in 1962 A. Nikolayev and P. Popovich started from one launcher with an interval of one day? History is silent.)  
On December 12, at 09:54:06 EST, the engines of the 1st stage of the Titan-2 launch vehicle with the Gemini 6 ship were ignited, and 1.17 seconds after that the engines were switched off due to premature shutdown of a jumper electrical connector blocking the missile rotation and pitch control program. Your actions, reader? You heard the rumble of engines gaining traction and felt a concussion of the ship, the clock went on the remote control, which usually “come to life” with the start of the ascent ... and suddenly everything calms down. What about the rocket? Your path to salvation is the ring of emergency bailout. The commander must pull the ring, hatches will shoot over your heads - and both chairs will be thrown away from the artillery rocket. Your reserve of time before the monstrous explosion is a couple of seconds ...

Walter Schirra and Thomas Stafford understood that the rocket had not left the launch, would not fall and would not explode. In a split second, the Gemini􏰀6 commander made a decision that only a highly qualified test pilot is capable of. Schirra and Stafford did not catapult!  
They got out of the ship after 1.5 hours, saving “Gemini6”, a rocket and  
the ability to execute a program. Understanding the causes of the abnormal termination of the start, the start team first found that some connectors are loose in their sockets. The second unpleasant discovery was a drop in the thrust of one of the two Titan engines within a second of its operation. All night on December 13, specialists from Aerojet searched for the reason and only in the morning did they find a forgotten plastic plug at the oxidizer’s inlet to the generator ... If this unfortunate connector had not fallen off, the Titan’s launch might still have been interrupted!  
The four-day cycle of repeated preparation for launching was changed to three days. December 15 at 08:37:26 EST (13:37:26 UTC) “Gemini􏰀6” finally started and after 6 minutes it entered an orbit 161x260 km high, lying almost exactly on the same plane as the orbit “Gemini􏰀 7 ". The second ship was 2000 km behind the target, whose orbit had a height of 294.5x302.6 km.  
During the first round, Shirra and Stafford were checking the Gemini-6 onboard systems, and the MCC specified their orbit. At 10:11 EST, at the end of the first revolution, W. Schirra raised its climax to 275 km. At 10:55, at the height of the 2nd turn, a phasing maneuver was performed: raising the perigee to 224 km changed the difference in the angular velocities of the ships and provided a meeting over Bermuda on the illuminated side. At 11:20, astronauts combined the planes of the orbits of the ships. At 11:41, near the 2nd perigee, the apogee height was adjusted again - a short push increased it by 0.8 km.

The airborne radar was turned on 3 hours after launch and showed a distance of 435 km to Gemini7, which specifically turned its nose to Gemini6. At 12:25 at the 3rd apogee, Shirra and Stafford made the transition to a coelliptical orbit 265x273 km high - 29 km lower  
target orbits. Gemini􏰀6 caught up with the target, and from a distance of 50 km flashing lights of Gemini􏰀7 became visible.  
The maneuvers of the beginning and end of interception were carried out in the shade and were counted on the Gemini-6 on-board computer according to radar data. The acceleration pulse took place at 13:56 at a distance of 59 km. “Gemini 6” rose to the height of the target’s orbit, passed underneath “Gemini􏰀7” and was ahead. At 14:26, Shirra “braked” - equalized the speeds of two ships, having spent 147.5 kg of fuel for all maneuvers instead of 131 kg of calculated ones.  
After 6 minutes, “Gemini􏰀6” approached the Borman spaceship 36 meters – inava 300 km, a joint flight began. This was the first rapprochement of two manned spacecraft in the history of astronautics. The Vostoks in 1962 and 1963 were put on a joint flight only due to accurate calculation, maintaining the set launch time, and the brilliant operation of the launch vehicle. They could not maneuver, and the distance between Nikolaev and Popovich, between Bykovsky and Tereshkova only increased. “This is a historic first time in manned space missions,” the editorial of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine said, “is recognized throughout the world as undeniable evidence of US leadership in this area.”  
Walter and Frank kept their ships at a distance of not more than 90 m for 3.5 revolutions, and the smallest distance was only 25-30 cm. "We said before the flight that we would not touch," - said at the after-flight press conference Walter Schirra. Astronauts not only could communicate on the radio - they perfectly saw each other in the illuminators! Schirra, who had a decent fuel supply, made several rounds of Gemini 7 at distances up to 3 m, and at 19:51 he took Gemini􏰀6 to a lower orbit 285.4x 302.2 km high .  
On December 16, after a dream, Shirra and Stafford prepared for landing. At the 16th turn, they transmitted a farewell radiogram to Borman and Lovell and performed braking. The returning device “Gemini􏰀6” was splashed in the Atlantic at 12.9 km from the calculated point - this was an outstanding result compared to previous landings. However, Shirra and Bormann had a bet - who would sit down more precisely, and Frank Borman won. On December 18, he drove out of the “Gemini-7” orbit and came down a little closer “to the peg” - with an error of 11.8 km.  
Astronauts were tired and lost 4-5 kg in weight, but the 14-day flight did not bring any serious medical consequences. One could fly to the moon!


	40. Gemini 8:a docking and an abort

In 1965, one of the three main objectives of the program was solved - to prove that a person can live and work in space for up to 14 days and, therefore, is able to fly to the moon and return. There were two more: to master and work out the meeting and docking in orbit and to learn to work in outer space. Five flights of 1966 were devoted to this. It was assumed that the last Gemini will meet in orbit with the first Apollo.

4 months after the accident on October 25, two rockets again were stationed at two starts of Cape Kennedy: Atlas at LC-14 with an improved GATV target number 5003; on LC􏰀19 - “Titan􏰀2” with the ship “Gemini􏰀8”. Neil Armstrong and David Scott were assigned to the main crew on September 29, Charles Conrad and Richard Gordon were called understudies.  
On March 16, at 10:00:03 EST (15:00:03 UTC), the Atlas was launched, and after 9 minutes, a target weighing 3175 kg entered an almost circular orbit with an inclination of 28.88 ° and a height of 298 km. After one revolution, at 11:41:02, the ship “Gemini 8” was launched into the same orbital plane. Its initial orbit had a height of 159.6x274.5 km.  
As in the Gemini 6 flight in December, Armstrong and Scott planned a rapprochement and meeting on the 4th turn. The initial distance was 1960 km. At 13:59, at the apogee of the 2nd revolution, phasing took place: the perigee was raised to 248 km, the convergence rate decreased from 6.68 to 4.51 ° per revolution. They ate lunch. At 14:27 they made a plane rotation of 0.05 °, at 14:44 - another small  
correction. In the third apogee, at 15:29, Armstrong put the Gemini􏰀8 into a coaxial orbit 270 km high. Agena was 315 km ahead and 28 km higher. At 16:20 from a distance of 141 km, astronauts saw it.  
After catching the target with the radar and putting the digital computer into the meeting mode, at 16:56 from a distance of 65 km the astronauts went to intercept. What is the good American method of coaxial ellipses, or coelliptic orbits:shortly afterwards a correctional impulse of 10 m / s was applied. They then made two more corrections on the way at the prompts of the digital computer, and the “braking” 12.8 m / s at 17:24. Armstrong slowly approached the target at 15 m, “froze” - and “hung” for half an hour. Then the commander led the ship a meter to the docking adapter, received permission, and at 18:14:54 EST (23:14:54 UTC) in Houston they heard: “MCC, we are docked”. This was the first dock in the history of space!  
The task of the first day was completed, and all three days were to fly. David Scott's very difficult exit was scheduled for tomorrow at 2 hours 51 minutes ...  
He leaves the cabin on a 7.6 m long halyard, puts a movie camera, takes a block with an emulsion from the Gemini􏰀8 adapter to register heavy nuclei. Climbing onto Agena, reveals the flaps of the holder of the S-10 micrometeorite registration board. It is fixed on the surface of the ship (tying its legs by the hook!) And Scott experiences an electric universal inertia-free tool. In the shade he puts on a shoulder bag with an autonomous supply of oxygen and 8 kg of freon for the HHMU jet pistol and increases the halyard to 30.5 m - the power supply remains on-board. Exit from the shadows; the fun begins. Armstrong fixes the open hatch, undocks the objects and retreats to 18 m. Scott, using a jet device, flies to the rocket. “Gemini” comes closer - the rescue of an astronaut is imitated. Scott flies back to the ship and returns to the chair. Next, there will be a repeat of the meeting and additional docking, the inclusion of the secondary Agena remote control for correcting the orbit of the combination, 10 experiments.

Only there was none of this. Neil and Dave managed to check the ship and took up the step. The Ageni control system did not confirm the readiness to receive commands from the Gemini computer - suspiciously ... At 18:32, at the commands with the Gemini, the stage engines deployed a bunch 90 ° to the side. Houston warned: if the stage orientation system is “buggy”, turn it off and operate the ship. Then the bundle suddenly turned 30 ° - according to the instruments, it was in the shade. “Neil, we are tilting!” Said Scott. Armstrong stopped the movement, but it immediately resumed. Gaining speed, the combination of Agena-Gemini began to rotate around the axis and tumbling at the same time. It was 27 minutes after the docking, at 18:42. They had separated.  
Scott turned off the missile control system, although in reality it was not to blame. Something “jumped” in the electric circuits of the OAMS ship maneuvering system, and engine No. 8 spontaneously turned on and off. After working for three minutes, he fell silent for four. At these minutes, the pilots seemed coped. And then the engine turned on again. Neil flipped the engine shut-off toggle switches — a null effect, although the OAMS fuel gauge has already fallen from 51 to 30%. Dave turned the rocket autopilot on and off.  
Armstrong was afraid that the dock adapter would break. At 18:53 he slowed down the “corps de ballet” as he could, Dave pressed the “undocking”, and Neil immediately gave an impulse with his nose engines - further from the dangerous neighbor! And then the commander realized his mistake, because, having got rid of the extra three tons of mass, the “Gemini” spun at a frantic speed: a crook in less than a second!  
There was only one thing left: OAMS engines powered off, turn on RCS stabilization motors, designed to be started for atmospheric section of the flight, and again stabilize the spacecraft. At 18:58,another communications session took place,  
and it began with a report by Scott  
that: "We have serious problems here ... we are tumbling." By 19:03 Armstrong, an experienced pilot,stopped the rotation. Out of 32.7 kg of fuel, 1.8 kg remained in one RCS circuit and 6.8 kg in the other.  
MCC had little choice but to order to land in the 7􏰀3 reserve area at the seventh turn. At 21:57 over the Congo, Armstrong and Scott worked out a braking impulse and, having passed the atmosphere on these miserable remnants in manual mode  
Gemini􏰀8 splashed in a spare area with a variable roll angle, at 22:22:28 EST (03:22:28 UTC), they landed 800 km east of Okinawa and 2 km from the calculated point. After 3 hours, the destroyer "Leonard Mason" came up - Neil and Dave had to climb onto it aboard the storm ramp ...  
And target No5003 turned out to be corrected. Its rotation was stopped and, starting from March 17, by 10 maneuvers it was raised to an altitude of 407 km. They left it in reserve.


	41. Gemini 9:a mission of changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the first accident in October, McDonnell Aircraft offered its own ATDA target (Augmented Target Docking Adapter) instead of the regular Agena. What was the idea and where does this name come from?  
> Lockheed’s standard GATV stage was equipped with a Target Docking Adapter (TDA). Since the “nose” of the Gemini ship was to be included in this adapter, it, like the ship itself, was produced by McDonnell. And why, they decided in St. Louis, not to replace the target itself at the same time? No sooner said than done: they took the “Gemini􏰀1A” nose section together with the RCS engines, put in a digital control system, communications and telemetry, docked the adapter, borrowed a head fairing and a radar transponder from competitors with dipole antenna. The length of this product was 3 m, its diameter was 1.5 m, and its mass was 789 kg, not counting 120 kg of fairing. The carrier is a one and a half step Atlas SLV-3 with no upper stage at all. Finally, the name: Augmented TDA is simply “Enhanced TDA”.  
> Of course, it was a "target for the poor." The standard GATV is a little lighter than the ship, it can take control and adjust the orbit of the ship-to-ship link. ATDA is four times lighter than Gemini (different docking dynamics) and is not capable of maneuvering.  
> On December 9th, St. Louis received the “car”, and on February 4th ATDA was sent to the spaceport. They managed to get to Gemini8, but the customer preferred Agena. In May, the target failed, and ATDA remained in stock. But now the case was found.

Elliott See and Charles Bassett were scheduled for November 8th flight Jamie 9. Perhaps the reader remembers that Armstrong and See had duplicated Gemini 5 and went to Gemini􏰀8 together. Deke Slayton broke the page and rearranged See as the commander of the next ship, since Elliott was weak enough to enter the open space. The understudies were Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan.  
The flight was planned for mid-May. Since Stafford only freed himself from Gemini 6 in February, the new training was difficult. On February 28, Gemini􏰀9 crews flew from Houston to St. Louis on two T􏰀38s to sign the factory’s protocol for work on the docking simulator. 

In difficult weather conditions (low clouds, rain falling into snow, fog), See made a mistake when landing at Lambert-Field Airport, and when trying to get to the second circle below the cloud cover, he lost speed and caught the roof of the factory building with a wing. It was the 101st building of the McDonnell factory, where they stood on the Gemini 9 and Gemini 10 tests. The T􏰀38 jumped, fell into a neighboring yard and exploded. 17 people were injured; See and Bassett died. On March 3, they were buried at Arlington Cemetery.

Stafford and Cernan continued cooking; they were given doubles by James Lovell and Buzz Aldrin. The launch of the target and the ship was scheduled for May 17, with an interval of 99 minutes.  
Exactly on the appointed day at 10:15:03 GATV target No. 5004 was launched from Cape Kennedy. At the 120th second of the flight, 10 seconds before the Atlas rocket launchers were turned off, one of them suddenly turned sideways to the stop. In these 10 seconds, the rocket wrote out a loop at 216 ° and went completely wrong ... An investigation showed: a short circuit.  
Agen # 5003 was too high for Gemini 9. It was unthinkable to wait two months for the next “Agena” to be ready. If the two-month interval between launches was compressed to the limit, the flight of Gemini-12 would be transferred to 1967, disrupting plans for the reconstruction of the ground-based control complex for moon launches. Fortunately, NASA had a “piano in the bushes,” and its name was ATDA.  
Two weeks later, on June 1 at 10:00:02 EST (15:00:02 UTC), ATDA was launched and launched into orbit at an altitude of 293.5x299.1 km. Telemetry showed that the fairing did not separate, but only partially opened. Nevertheless, they decided to launch the ship - but because of the failure of ground equipment, it was not possible to start the launch azimuth in time on the Gemini􏰀9 computer. The launch was delayed for two days.  
For Thomas Stafford, this was the fourth unsuccessful attempt at a space launch! And when Tom and Gene again arrived at the launch on the morning of June 3, a placard met them at the ship with an unequivocal warning of Lovell and Aldrin: “Get out into space at last - or make room!”  
June 3 at 08:39:33 EST "Gemini􏰀9" flew away. This time, a meeting was planned at the 3rd turn, and therefore, the first maneuver to compensate for the elimination error was carried out immediately after separation from the rocket at an altitude of 158.7x266.7 km. A three-turn approach, simulating the rise of the lunar module of the Apollo ship to the orbital module,was planned. 

Well, it turned out - despite the fact that the on-board computer was junking and astronauts at times made calculations "on paper" using the table of logarithms! The final approach was carried out in the shade under the light of the full moon. At 12:55 east of New Guinea, Stafford approached the ATDA target at 80 m, spending 131 kg of fuel for a rapprochement with a plan of 129 kg.  
The Sun rose, and the fears were confirmed: two sections of the conical fairing remained connected by a bandage, and therefore did not separate and closed the docking adapter. “She looks like an angry alligator ...” - Stafford annoyedly reported to Earth. The teams issued by ATDA did not bring success - the “alligator jaws” only slightly closed. Lovell's idea - “let Gene go out there and cut the bandage” —the leadership was reluctant to accept; Stafford slightly “shove” the cowl around the nose of the ship. So it did not work out in this flight of nine scheduled connections - and one did not work either ...

At 13:41 the astronauts left the stage, giving a pulse of 6 m / s straight up. Removing from the ATDA by almost 18 km, as the theory predicted, the ship returned to it through a turn. The computer was not turned on; the optical instrument was a working tool. The “Equal Periodic Meeting” ended at 15:16 with stabilization near ATDA and a joint period for 39 minutes. At 15:55, Staff Ford slowed down at 1.1 m / s, and the Gemini slowly stepped forward.  
On the second day of the flight, we held the third meeting with an initial range of 155 km. Work began at 03:03 and took turns from 12th to 15th. A situation was simulated when the lunar module was unable to land on the moon due to a malfunction and the command module was saved. This meant that Dzhemini􏰀9 did not intercept “from below”, but being 12 km “from above”, having a target against the background of the Earth and the Sun directly above his head. The final stage of rapprochement took place over the Sahara desert, similar to the Moon, and ended at 06:22 on the approach to Australia. The mode turned out to be quite complicated, but without a radar it was simply unrealizable, and required 62 kg of fuel. At 07:39, Gemini and ATDA finally parted. This was enough to prevent the lunar module developers from removing the radar from it to save mass. The Apollo command module has already lost it ...  
On June 5, at 10:03, Eugene Cernan opened the hatch, stood on a chair, installed a movie camera, took traps for micrometeorites, took a picture, put a handrail, and finally got out. Movements without reliable support took up a lot of strength, they didn’t hold the “beams” glued to the hull, the halyard got tangled underfoot, a light ship twitched in response to any movement. Nevertheless, Cernan placed two mirrors on the front desk and on the edge of the adapter section so that Stafford could see him, and at 10:46 he “ducked” over the edge. There, on top of the brake remote control, stood the AMU autonomous movement unit.  
When the Gemini entered the shade, Sernan began to check the installation. At 11:06, when he had already put forward two armrests into the working position, the glass of the hermetic helmet began to fog. Pausing and waiting for the gap, Gene turned on the AMU, checked the connection, connected the power supply, turned around and worked out his back movements and “entered” his back into the “chair”. He was waiting for the sunrise to clear the glass. "Gemini" was seen - moisture has become less. It was enough to move - and again nothing is visible!  
At AMU, Eugene had to fly to the bow of the ship, check all the nozzles and control knobs, fly 25 meters forward and sideways. Stafford would have approached him, imitating salvation ... Next, he would have to “jump off” the AMU in front of the hatch and leave her to the mercy of fate.  
But it was impossible to fly blindly, and at 11:40 Cernan and Stafford decided to stay in position. MCC approved the decision. Eugene got out of AMU and tried to remove the mirror, but it became very hot and the glass was completely foggy. Having removed the film from the movie camera, Eugene lost it from his hands ... With the help of the commander, he descended into his chair and closed the hatch. The exit lasted 2 hours 05 minutes - instead of 2 hours 47 minutes according to plan.  
No need to blame Cernan for failure. It was just the second exit in the US program - and what a difficult task! He was spending 1.5 times more energy than his breastplate could “digest”, the pulse reached 180, the respiration rate was 30. A liter of sweat was poured from Cernan's spacesuit on Earth, and the astronaut lost 4.5 kg in total!  
On June 6, at 09:00:23 EST, the Gemini-9 capsule was splashed in the Atlantic just 0.7 km from the calculated point. This record of accuracy has remained unsurpassed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The AMU (Astronaut Maneuvering Unit) unit was commissioned by the United States Air Force and developed by the Wright Patterson Laboratory of Air Engines and Chance Vought. The project was led by Major Edward Givens, who was selected to the astronaut squad in the summer of 1966. The development cost $ 12 million.  
> The AMU installation weighing 75.3 kg was made in the form of a shoulder pack measuring 89x61x43 cm in size with a working fluid tank (hydrogen peroxide), a propellant feed system and two jet nozzle subsystems of six in each, an automatic stabilization system, and a tank with 3.3 kg of oxygen (more than 1 hour of operation) and its supply system, autonomous radio communication system with the ship, and telemetry. Nozzles with a thrust of 1.04 kgf provide movement up and down and back and forth and turns around three axes. The controls are located in the armrests. The project AMU provides a distance of 300 m from the ship, and the total speed margin is 76 m / s.  
> In the list of experiments of the United States Department of Defense on the Gemini ships, the AMU had an index of D􏰀12. They planned to test it on the flights “Gemini􏰀9” (with a 43 m long halyard) and “Gemini􏰀12” (without a halyard). The second attempt was abandoned on September 23 and the further tests of the AMU were transferred to the Apollo Applications program.


	42. Gemini 10:double rendezvous

As you wish, Gemini 10 is the most beautiful flight in the Gemini program, and maybe even in the entire American cosmonautics. The flight in which the space tug first "worked", transporting the ship to a new target. A flight in which an astronaut jumped from his ship to a stranger ship in order to pick up valuable cargo from it.  
From January 25, 1966, John Young and Michael Collins prepared for this flight in the main crew. First, their understudies were Lovell and Aldrin, and from March 21, Alan Bean and Clifton Williams.  
Back in April, NASA announced that the Gemini 10 will fly on July 18th. And despite all the delays of the previous ship, this date has survived. At 15:39:46 EST (20:39:46 UTC), with a delay of 2 seconds, the target No5005 started and ascended to an orbit of 291x300 kilometers. Why was it flown to a non-circular orbit? Because they aimed at the plane of the orbit of target No. 5003, with which Armstrong docked in March.  
And at 17:20:27, the Gemini􏰀10 followed the target - into an orbit with an altitude of 159.8x268.7 km. When separating the first stage, a lot of red and yellow particles appeared in the window — as it turned out, a tank exploded on the stage. Immediately after separation, Young added 8.2 m / s with the ship's engines - he compensated for the elimination error.  
The meeting was planned at the 4th turn. Chasing your target, Young and Collins made an attempt to obtain navigational measurements using on-board means - an inertial navigation system and (for control) sextants of two different firms. It turned out that it is very difficult to measure the position of stars in space with the help of sex. “Since you cannot see the stars,” John Young reassured, “you cannot. I told you this six months ago. ” The results obtained by astronauts diverged from those calculated on Earth. I had to use the calculations of the MCC.  
A small error when loading the navigation program into the ship’s computer during interception resulted in a lateral mismatch of 0.8 km and a high fuel consumption for two intermediate corrections, especially for braking near the target at 22:26. The team went “purely by force” and spent 181 kg of fuel at the stage of interception - three times more than its predecessors, and only 265 kg instead of 138 kg according to plan. MCC: “Give us a supply of fuel.” Young: “By instrument - 36%.” “36%?” 60% should have remained. The earth controllers clutched at their heads - the entire ballistic scheme of flight flew to hell.  
At 23:13, Young docked the Gemini with target number 5005. The undocking and re-mooring were canceled, the approach scheme with the old step was urgently replayed.  
To get to Agena No5003, you had to be behind her. The only way to do this quickly is to get a noticeable difference in treatment periods. If the target is in an orbit with an altitude of 395x400 km and, moreover, a quarter of a turn behind, then the most correct is to go up and let it go forward. And if you need to get the result in the morning, you need to rise higher.

At 00:59 over Hawaii, the main engine of the Agena on stage was turned on for acceleration. After working for only 14 seconds, he increased the ligament speed by 128 m / s. Astronauts sat with their backs in the direction of flight and through the windows they saw what was happening behind the Agena. Rather, they did not sit — they hung on safety belts, pressed against them by an effort of almost 1g. The camera, inadvertently left in the cockpit, fell and hit the partition. “It was really something,” Young shared his impressions. - When is this thing working, not noticing it is not possible. ” When the engine was silent, the Gemini-Agena system began to climb 295 km from the perigee to the peak of 766 km.  
This record orbit already entered the lower part of the radiation belts, and the climax was just in the region of the Brazilian magnetic anomaly, where they descend the lowest. A special magnetometer and two spectrometers were specially installed on the Gemini 10, which made it possible to determine the dose received by astronauts. It did not exceed 0.78 rad and amounted to only 10% of the expected.  
Those six turns on which the "Gemini 10" dived into the radiation belt, Young and Collins were taken for sleep. At the 12th revolution on July 19 at 13:40, the Ageni engine was switched on for braking (104 m / s) and the apogee was reduced to 382 km. “Maybe it was one g,” Young remarked, “but this is the largest 1g we have seen.” Finally, at 15:57, they rounded the orbit (+25 m / s) and were 2250 km behind and 13 km below the second target.  
At 16:44, Michael Collins first went out into outer space. More precisely, it dried up: he opened the hatch, stood up, hooked his feet on the remote control and, on the shadow side, made a UV camera 22 shots of the Milky Way section from beta South  
Cross to the range of Sails. The author of this experiment was Karl Henize, the future astronaut. On the lighted side, Michael had to shoot a control color chart, the Earth's surface and clouds. However, after leaving Collins from the shadows, and after him, Young felt eye irritation, and at 17:33 the astronauts urgently closed the hatch. They suspected that the reagent was to blame for fogging the glass, but it turned out - it was a reaction to the smell of lithium hydroxide.  
flew to the step and clung to the docking cone. And to the Earth below - 400 km! Collins was supposed to remove the S􏰀10 trap from Agena, but crawled to it (not a handrail or protrusions - nothing!) Broke. He returned with a “pistol” to the Gemini hatch and made a second attempt. This time he caught on more successfully - for cable harnesses behind the docking cone - and at 18:25 he was able to remove the precious S􏰀10. These samples (and among them - cultures of bacteria and viruses) were in flight for 4 months! Pulling up  
for the halyard, he handed the “booty” to Young.  
According to the program, it was necessary to set a “fresh” trap instead of S􏰀10, but Michael was afraid to break the suit when  
a new jump ... and just threw it away. To test the "pistol" of the working fluid was not enough. The MCC intervened, said that the fuel supply for stabilization of the ship was exhausted and the exit had to be completed. At 18:32, Michael, getting confused in a long halyard, barely climbed into the cabin - as it turned out, having lost a camera on the way􏰀  
ru Hasselblad. At 18:40 the hatch was closed. At 19:53, the astronauts opened the right hatch for another 3 minutes and threw away what was not needed: a chest pack, a halyard and another  
Three more maneuvers were made by the Agena. July 20,at 14:00,"Gemini􏰀10" undocked,ran away from his target, and from a distance of 255 km Young led him to meet with the rocket No5003. But the radar was of little use, because the electricity aboard the old Agena ended on the 10th day of the flight and its defendant did not work. Astronauts used only a sighting device, an inertial platform, and a computer. After 3 hours, having spent 82 of 103 kg of fuel allocated for the experiment, Young approached the Armstrong rocket and stopped three meters from it. Agena was empty: fuel consumed, gases bled. She did not spin.

At 18:01, Collins’ second exit began. The pilot left the ship on a 15-meter halyard with an HHMU jet pistol in his hands. First, he removed the S-12 micrometeorite trap from his ship, then connected the HHMU to a nitrogen tank in the adapter. And then there was the Big Jump - pushing off the ship, Michael flew to the step in 3-4 seconds and clung to the docking cone. And to the Earth below - 400 km! Collins was supposed to remove the S􏰀10 trap from Agena, but crawled to it (not a handrail or protrusions - nothing!) Broke. He returned with a “pistol” to the Gemini hatch and made a second attempt. This time he caught on more successfully - for cable harnesses behind the docking cone - and at 18:25 he was able to remove the precious S􏰀10. These samples (and among them - cultures of bacteria and viruses) were in flight for 4 months! Pulling up for the halyard, he handed the “booty” to Young.  
According to the program, it was necessary to set a “fresh” experiment instead of S􏰀10, but Michael was reluctant to use the suit again,and threw it away. To test the "pistol" of the working fluid was not enough. The MCC intervened, said that the fuel supply for stabilization of the ship was exhausted and the exit had to be completed. At 18:32, Michael, getting confused in a long halyard, barely climbed into the cabin - as it turned out, having lost a camera on the way,a Hasselblad. At 18:40 the hatch was closed. At 19:53, astronauts opened the right hatch for another 3 minutes and threw away the unnecessary: a chest pack, a halyard and 10 more items. At the same time, the necessary one disappeared: the S-12 and the flight log with the flight plan sailed into the hatch.  
Then Young left Agena and, at 20:59, made a correction to improve the landing conditions - he lowered the perigee by 106 km. The landing took place the next day, July 21, at 16:07:05 EST (21:07:05 UTC), 875 km east of Cape Kennedy, near the Guadalcanal aircraft carrier.  
On July 21, the Agena No. 5005 was first transferred to an orbit with an altitude of 386x1390 km, and then left at a circular altitude of 352 km. She was supposed to be visited by Gemini 11. In August, however, this item was excluded from the next flight program, “since fuel costs will not be justified by repeating the operation that has already been completed once”.


	43. Gemini 11:one turn - and you're docked

On March 21, 1966, NASA announced that Charles Conrad and Richard Gordon would fly to Gemini 11, with Neil Armstrong and William Anders duplicating them.  
The September 9th launch attempt was changed when, during refueling of the oxidizing agent into the tanks of the 1st stage of the Titan, a very weak, “point” leak appeared. After draining the components, the leak site was sealed with sodium silicate and an aluminum pad. September 10, the start did not take place again - this time due to the incomprehensible behavior of the Atlas autopilot. While we figured out that in reality the equipment is working correctly, the start moment has passed. On September 12, at 08:05:02 EST (13:05:02 UTC), the GATV 5006 target was launched and entered into orbit at an altitude of 295.2x298.5 km. Gemini 11 started at 09:42:27, 3 minutes before the passage of Agena over Cape Kennedy, and entered into orbit 430 km behind it — the initial phase was 3.43 °. It was the heaviest of the 12 ships of the Gemini series - 3,798 kg - and it was launched in the most critical of conditions, with a launch window of only 2 seconds. The fact is that Conrad and Gordon had to conduct super-fast rapprochement with the target - in just one turn, and only according to the on-board data! There was such a ballistic version of the take-off of the lunar module from the moon, and it should have been tested. Many doubted their success. Bill Schneider, future director of the Skylab program, bet against James Elms on the dollar that a rapprochement with a consumption of less than 187 kg would not work!  
Express rapprochement began with the correction of the launch orbit according to the data of the onboard vehicle. Having received an additional 11.9 m / s, the ship found itself in orbit with an altitude of 160.4x278.9 km. 23 minutes after the start, Conrad corrected the inclination and caught the target with a radar, and at the 35th minute over Madagascar he announced that he saw the target from a distance of 93 km. We checked the calculations, airborne and ground: an almost exact coincidence! The exit at the apogee above the Australian Carnavon station at the 50th minute of the flight was combined with the beginning of the interception of the target from a distance of 28 km. The computer gave an impulse of 43 m / s, and at the 76th minute over Hawaii was already 4.5 km behind the target. 85 minutes after launch, the Gemini 11 commander equalized the speed of the ship and the target, and three minutes later Conrad approached her. “Mr Kraft! - he turned to the flight manager. “So you believe that M = 1?”  
At 11:16:42, 94 minutes after the start, Pete docked his ship to the Agen. It all took 181 kg of fuel - only a third more than the average spent by Shirra, Armstrong and Stafford when converging on the 4th and 3rd turns. And then Schneider took out a dollar paper bag, painted on it the fuel consumption for each maneuver and gave it to Elms.  
For the first time, astronauts were allowed to complete training docks. At 11:52, the Gemini undocked, and each of the pilots carried out two moorings — one in the shade and one in the light. They photographed the moonlight and two comets; At the same time, ion sensors were operating on Agena.  
After the last switching on of the main engine “Agena” - it issued a side impulse of 33 m / s. Now you could have dinner and go to bed.  
On September 13, Pete and Richard were getting ready to leave quickly, but the final operations — such as installing a golden filter on a helmet — unexpectedly required a lot of effort.  
Gordon, already sweating at 09:44, finally leaned out of the hatch, put in the handle, removed and gave the commander a stack with nuclear emulsions. With difficulty, he set up a movie camera - he had to hang over it and hit with his fist. Richard felt that he was "knocked down" from his place, and spent 80% of his effort just to hold on.  
On the second attempt, he switched to the new part of the Gemini, sat on it, as if in a saddle, and rested. Then, holding on with one hand, the other connected a 30-meter cable from Agena to the guide pin of the Gemini 11 docking device. This simple operation made Gordon get sweaty; in 6 minutes, the pulse rose to 150 and higher, the respiratory rate - up to 50 per minute, perspiration flowed in the right eye. The astronaut returned to the hatch and reloaded the camera, but he no longer had enough for further operations — testing a universal, momentless instrument and flying on a jet device. Gordon saw almost nothing and could not work. “Gene Cernan warned me, and I took it to heart,” he later explained. “I knew it would be difficult, but I had no idea how difficult it was.”  
Conrad ordered to stop the exit and return to the cabin. At 10:17, the hatch was closed — instead of 107 minutes, the exit continued 33. At 11:12, astronauts opened the hatch again to throw out a long halyard, a chest pack and various rubbish.  
On September 14, at 02:13, on the 26th revolution, the crew overclocked the “Gemini-Agena” combination. At first, two auxiliary ones were switched on for 68 sec, and then, for 26 sec, the main engine of the rocket. An impulse of 279.6 m / s was issued, and the orbit parameters changed: perigee of 289.5 km, and the climax rose to 1369 km! Velocity at the peak decreased especially noticeably and amounted to only 6904 m / s.  
This was done not to draw closer to a new goal, as in Gemini􏰀10, but to conduct several experiments. Naturally, radiation was measured (0.2–0.3 rad / h), and the astronauts from the apogee made more than 300 pictures of the Earth. On one of them, the Sinai and Arabian Peninsula and the fire in the oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia were visible. And most importantly - from a height of 1370 km the sphericity of the Earth was already clearly visible!  
In this orbit of Gemini 11, only two turns remained. At the 28th revolution at 05:36 a new inclusion for 23 seconds the speed was reduced by 277.9 m / s, and the climax “fell into place." Why did it take less time? And because the connection after the first impulse was noticeably better: it was 6634 kg, 6028 kg remained.  
The astronauts quickly ate, and at 07:48 above Madagascar Gordon began his second exit. This time, he crawled to his waist and spent half an hour “night” shooting UV stars, commanding the pilot how to deploy the ship. In the light, Richard took pictures of Houston, other ground objects and rested for almost 20 minutes. Surprisingly, the fact: both astronauts in spacesuits, one in the cockpit open wide, the other half half outside - dozed off for a few minutes! Upon entering the shadow, Richard began to shoot stars again - and Australia, where  
fires raged. At 09:57, Gordon closed the hatch behind him - he did not spend much effort because he was securely fixed to the chair, but his legs were tired.  
At 11:29 a.m., Gemini􏰀11 was undocked from Ajena. The most interesting thing began: how will two objects connected by a cable behave? First, Conrad tried to introduce a bunch into gravitational stabilization - so that the rocket hung below, the ship above and the cable was pulled. However, it was not possible to move 30 m away without exciting strong vibrations. At 11:55, we moved on to the second part of the experiment - “artificial severity”. Conrad introduced the combination into a rotational mode of flight; the cable first stretched along a curved line, but after 20 minutes it straightened and the rotation became completely correct. Conrad brought his speed to 38 ° / min, and after dinner to 55 ° / min, creating a severity of 0.00078 g. It didn’t feel “to the touch”, but things slowly settled down to the bottom of the capsule. At 14:42, after three hours of rotation, the pin was shot, and the Gemini left the rocket.  
On the morning of September 15, using excess fuel, Conrad and Gordon conducted an unplanned reapproachment with the step. It began at 03:09 from a distance of 46 km and ended at 04:22 with a 12-m approach. The joint flight lasted only 12 minutes.  
On the same day, “Gemini􏰀11” left orbit and launched in automatic mode. The deviation from the calculated splashdown point was 4.9 km.


	44. Gemini 12:it’s never too late to learn

Gemini 12 ”was always considered as a reserve flight: it was possible to conduct experiments on it that had not been successful earlier. Extra meetings and dockings were no longer needed - neither with the Pegasus 3 spacecraft, nor with the OAO Observatory. Apollo 1 fell away because  
switched to 1967.  
The real task of “Gemini􏰀12” eas defined only at the end of September, when in Houston, the results of "Gemini􏰀11" were summed up. It was so far not at all possible to organize and plan the spacewalk so that the astronaut completely and without tension fulfilled his task,which was to learn to work in outer space. This was the main task of Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin, who were assigned to this flight on June 17. The backups were Gordon Cooper and Eugene Cernan.

The initial exit request - the test of the installation of the autonomous movement of the AMU - was canceled, the installation already on the ship was removed. Instead, they prepared a series of simple exercises with two-minute intervals.  
in hydraulic weightlessness, where work overboard was imitated more accurately than in short parabolic “hills” on the KC-135 airplane.  
The target for Gemini 12 was the GATV No5001R - the very first in a series recognized as an annual flight in 1965 and finalized in mid-1966. There was no rocket earmarked for it, and they had to borrow the carrier from the Lunar Orbiter project. The flight was extended from three days to four - to conduct a series of EVA tests. 44 fixation devices — handrails, handles, rings — were installed on the outer surface of the ship and step. Aldrin was made a special belt to which portable items could be attached and which could be attached to the handrails with two short files with carbines. They made "portable handrails" - platforms with Velcro on one side and a handle on the other. Finally we made fixators for the legs in front of the working platform on the adapter. Aldrin spent - for the first time in program history - 12 hours experiments requiring filming in the shadow of the Earth.  
The launches were planned for November 9, but due to a failure of the power supply unit of the Titan-2 secondary autopilot, they were postponed to November 10. After the replacement, the new autopilot turned out to be unusable, was replaced again, and the flight was moved to 11th.  
On November 11, 1966 at 14:07:59 EST (19:07:59 UTC), the Atlas started with a target, and at 15:46:33, followed by “Titan􏰀2” with “ Gemini􏰀12. " Lovell and Aldrin performed rapprochement on the 3rd turn, as in Gemini 9. The airborne radar “took” the target from a distance of 436 km, but ceased to operate at a range of 119 km after entering a coelliptical orbit. As it turned out, the transponder failed on the step. Aldrin had to recall the contents of his doctoral dissertation on rapprochement and docking and tackle the sextant. He measured the current height of the Agena above the horizon and calculated the necessary speed increment to intercept.  
At 19:33, Gemini 12 successfully approached the target and at 20:00:26 Lovell docked with it. The pilot was also given the opportunity to moor, and Lovell came off the stage with great difficulty, but Aldrin docked neatly.  
As in the previous two flights, for Gemini 12 they planned to climb to 850 km using the Agena marching engine and fly in an extended orbit for 16 hours. This had to be abandoned, since telemetry showed a pressure drop in the combustion chamber of 8% 8.5 minutes after the start of Agena. Instead, it was decided to observe and photograph the solar eclipse on November 12, the strip of which stretched from Peru to Brazil. It remained to guess the correct moment of crossing this strip. Then the crew saw an eclipse - for them it lasted 8 seconds. Aldrin photographed a rare occurrence with a 16mm camera.  
At 11:16, Buzz Aldrin opened the hatch, installed a UV camera, waited for the night, and carried out astronomical surveys — moreover, Lovell had difficulty “turning” the whole bunch with the ship’s engines. In the light, Buzz installed a movie camera and a folding handrail up to the bow of the ship, removed a trap for micrometeorites and two glass panels to study contaminants of portholes, and photographed cloud paintings. The second shadow also went to the shooting of stars. At 13:45 the astronaut returned to his chair.  
On this day, an experiment was conducted on communication with Gemini 12 through an ARIA air repeater designed for the Apollo program.  
On November 13, at 10:36, Aldrin reopened the exit hatch and began his main exit. He first set up the movie camera as usual, standing in an armchair, and then removed it and put it back again, only holding the handrail. Then Buzz crossed the handrail onto the bow of the ship, fixed, easily connected the Gemini and Agenu cable and activated the S-10 trap on the rocket.  
After exchanging cameras with Lovell, he went to the back of the adapter and secured his legs in the clips. So it was possible to stand and bend down almost without effort. Having put in a new camera and lamps, Aldrin carefully worked out a series of “elementary operations” —tearing off “Velcro”, looping a hook, wrapping a bolt with a key, and cutting electric cables. It all came out easily, the pulse did not rise above 130. One bolt together with the puck “flew away”, but Buzz caught it with his hand.

At 12:10, the astronaut switched to Agena, secured himself with belt files and tested the undocking and docking of electrical and hydraulic sockets and operation with a torqueless key. At the end, Aldrin wiped the commander’s window with a napkin - the Earth wanted to know what exactly was settling on the glass. Lovell, posing as a driver, asked at the same time to change the oil. Buzz replied that the tire pressure was normal and returned to the cab. They closed the hatch at 12:42. Everything became clear: a well-organized exit can be done on schedule and without overvoltage.  
At 15:00, the crew undocked and expected that the Gemini Agen system would stabilize along the vertical axis. The cable, however, did not fully stretch, and significant fluctuations occurred in the system. At 19:38 the cable was shot, and soon "Gemini􏰀12" left the rocket.  
On November 14, at 09:53, Buzz Aldrin opened the exit hatch for the third time, threw out 15 objects with a total mass of 32 kg and photographed the stars and sunrise.  
The hatch was closed at 10:48; the exit lasted 55 minutes.  
Gemini 12 presented a couple of surprises, fortunately not very dangerous. On November 13, part of the fuel cell battery No. 2 failed. The nature of the malfunction was such that there was not enough space in the tank for water generated during the operation of the fuel cell. The astronauts had to drink a lot of water - because it was stored in the same tank behind a flexible membrane! At first, two, and then two more orientation engines stopped working, and it had to fly in an non-oriented mode.  
On November 15, the Gemini-12 capsule splashed down in the Atlantic - it sat well, except for the fact that at the peak of overload a packet of books and filters fell straight from the wall to Lovell on her knees. After 28 minutes, the jubilant astronauts were already standing on the deck of the Wasp. Gemini flights were completed, and moreover, brilliantly.  
6 hours after the Gemini 12 landing, an attempt was made to transfer Agena No. 5001R to the storage orbit - one of the first Apollo could approach it. But Bill Schneider was not in vain holding the marching stage engine under suspicion.   
On December 23, the step descended from orbit, and two more Agenas followed on December 29 and 30. The Armstrong missile, left above, survived until September 15, 1967.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter proves my level of ignorance of the finer details of Gemini. TIL Gemini 12 repeated Gemini 11’s tether experiment.


	45. Project Gemini:to the moon?

James Chamberlin, top manager of the Gemini project, saw his ship not just as a temporary apparatus for testing methods of meeting and docking in low Earth orbit, but presented it as a viable, cheap and simple alternative to Apollo for flying and landing to the moon. Such proposals - the forerunners of the 1990s slogan “cheaper, better, faster” - “in the Apollo era” looked like “moving away from the agency’s general line” and were anathematized.  
The initial Mercury Mark II program, signed on August 14, 1961, in particular, involved docking the Gemini􏰀13 * and 􏰀14 with the Centaur step launched on the Titan􏰀2, and switching to the flight path to circumnavigate the moon. At the same time, the cost was only $ 60 million more than the estimated cost of the Gemini main program ($ 356 million).  
And by reducing the number of flights in the program from 14 to nine, it would be possible to fly around the moon already in May 1964, at an expense of only $ 8.5 million more than was envisaged by the main program!  
The first thoughts to launch the double version of Mercury to the Moon were quickly discarded. All references to lunar flights were removed from the revised plan, released just a week later.

Soon afterwards,Chamberlin offered not only to fly around the moon, but also to sit down at a cost of only 1/20 of the cost of Apollo! He saw the key to success as a technique for meeting and docking in a near-lunar orbit and the use of small-sized lunar modules with an open cockpit launched by a separate “Titan-2”.  
In this case, the mass was to be brought out 5 times less on the flight path to the Moon than was planned for the “direct” landing (the Nova – Apollo system), considered at that time. Instead of the huge Nova, one could use the lighter Saturn C􏰀3 and land the Americans on the moon by January 1966. The estimated cost of this option is $ 584 million, plus the price of two Saturn C􏰀3.  
In late September, Chamberlin again proposed the lunar Gemini, now as part of the Integrated Apollo Program. The plan contained the same flight schedule as before, but at the same time the estimate increased to $ 706 million (including the Saturn launch vehicle), and the mass of the lunar module decreased by 1.8–2.4 times.  
NASA management rejected the lunar aspects of the plan, but ordered to continue negotiations with Chamberlin.

The revised moon-free plan submitted by Chemberlin on October 27 formed the basis of the Gemini project.  
Knowing about the difficulties that the Gemini program faced in life, it is now possible to assess when President John F. Kennedy’s dream “according to Chamberlin” would really come true. It must be assumed that the development of Saturn C􏰀3 would have taken a little less time than the development of Saturn C􏰀5, because in the final version (December 1961) the first differed from the second only in a mass of steps and two F􏰀1 engines in the first stage instead of five.  
Thus, it turns out that the first landing on the moon, at best, would take place six months earlier. A detailed analysis of expenditures indicates that the cost savings would be only about $ 4 billion compared to the estimated Apollon budget of $ 18 billion. Apparently, NASA made the right decision, giving preference to the Saturn-5 Apollo system, which had much more potential than the Gemini-based approach. Nevertheless, this was not the end of the lunar Gemini. At least three more times such plans were discussed.  
In the summer and autumn of 1962, NASA headquarters made a request to Space Technology Laboratories and McDonnell for the use of Gemini as an "apparatus for the logistics and rescue crews of lunar ships." The possibility of a “direct” landing was considered, the changes in the design required to accomplish such a task were determined, and the cost of purchasing an additional ship was estimated. But due to serious problems with financing, the issue was not further studied.  
In the spring of 1964, Saturn 1, which was denied launch of Apollo manned spacecraft, was seen as  
carrier for the flimsy Gemini. Such a mission could take place before the start of the manned flights Saturn-1B on Apollo or in the case of “unforeseen circumstances” - for example, to get ahead of the Russians in flight, if the Apollo had serious delays. But von Braun and the other founding fathers of the American aerospace industry were not interested in Congress allocating money for anything that competed with Apollon. Therefore, on June 8, 1964, NASA headquarters issued an order restricting “any study of take-off missions using the Gemini,” as well as an instruction prohibiting the issuance of contracts for the study of this issue. Like this!  
Nevertheless, a year later, astronaut Pete Conrad, with the support of Martin and McDonnell, came up with a plan, tentatively called the Large Earth Orbit, where he proposed to disperse Gemini to fly around the moon using the “ Transtage. "  
The modified Gemini had to dock with the launched Transtage 3 stage couple. The second stage of the pair, equipped with a docking unit, as at the “Agena” stage, would transfer the ship to the trajectory of the Moon’s flyby. When approved in September 1965, a flyby could be held in April 1967. Despite protests by NASA Administrator James Webb (“Any funds that Congress would like to allocate for such a project are wiser to spend on speeding up the Apollo program”), Conrad was able to delay have a plan to use the Agena rocket to lift Gemini 11 into orbit at a record altitude of 1370 km. The high-altitude flight became the remnant of the lunar Gemini. After the Apollo􏰀1 fire, many aspects of the security of the “main” lunar program were revised. It was likely that the crew would be “stuck” in a lunar orbit or in a lunar orbit that was relatively high. We studied the options of a ship - a rescuer from the lunar orbit, a shelter on the lunar surface, and a rescuer from the lunar surface. Interestingly, all of them could be implemented according to the scheme with a “direct” landing - even an enlarged three-five-seater version of the Gemini was much lighter than the Apollo three-seater command module


	46. Project Soyuz:the beginning

The birth story of the Soyuz project dates back to 1960. At that time, in Design Bureau No. 1 in the design department No. 9 of M.K. Tikhonravov, in parallel with the design of the first Vostok manned spacecraft, other ship options were also considered, in t .h. for flying around the moon. The very first ghosts showed that in order to achieve this goal, the assembly of a spacecraft in orbit of the Earth is required, since the Vostok LV, the most powerful at that time, did not allow direct launch of the spacecraft to the Moon.  
In 1960–1961 In Division No 9, studies were carried out on various construction options for the manned space-rocket complex in orbit for flight to the Moon, and in 1962 its detailed design began in OKB-1  
nie. Then this project got its name - “Union”.  
The Soyuz lunar complex included three different types of spacecraft: 7K (two-manned spacecraft), 9K (rocket unit) and 11K (tanker ship).  
On December 24, 1962, Chief Designer S.P. Korolev approved the first exotic design of the Soyuz complex (7K􏰀 9K􏰀11K), and on March 7, 1963, a drawing of the ship 7K. In 1963, the design development of 7K ended with the release of initial data on the design and systems of the ship and its SA. Since mid-1963, the release of design documentation began. The work of OKB􏰀1 on the topic “Union” was supported by the Decrees of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated 04.16.1962 No. 346-160 and dated 03.12.1963 No. 1284-435.  
At the end of 1963, S.P. Korolev set the task to work out the three-seater version of the 7K spacecraft for orbital flights, and this option was soon designed. However, since the spring of 1964, all OKB-1 forces were thrown into remaking the Vostok in the triple Voskhod, and in August 1964 the creation of the ship for the flyby of the Moon was entrusted to OKB-52 by V.N.Chelomey. Therefore, the development of the lunar complex 7K – 9K – 11K in OKB􏰀1 was discontinued.  
Nevertheless, the work of designers and constructors was not in vain. At the end of 1964, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev made the decision to use 7K for testing the docking system in near-Earth orbit. So the 7K lunar spacecraft turned into an orbital ship - 7K􏰀OK.


	47. Soyuz 7K-OK:a technical description

In August 1965, specified tactical and technical requirements for the 7K􏰀OK ship (orbital ship) were compiled at OKB􏰀1, which received the 11F615 index and inherited the name from the previous project, Soyuz. 7K􏰀OK was a three-seater spacecraft designed to practice maneuvering and docking in near-Earth orbit, as well as to conduct various experiments, including the transfer of astronauts from spacecraft to spacecraft.  
The work on the creation of the 7K􏰀OK was directly supervised by K.D. Bushuev, M.K. Tikhoravov and K.P. Feoktistov (layout and design), B.E. Chertok (complex of on-board systems). The leading designer of 7K􏰀OK was first E.A. Frolov, and then - A.F. Topol.  
The Soyuz 7K􏰀OK ship consisted of three compartments: a descent vehicle (SA), a household (BO), and an instrumentation compartment (PAO). The compartments were interconnected mechanically and at the stage of descent from orbit were separated using pyrotechnic devices. The mass of the ship was 6.4–6.5 t, length (along the hull) - 6.98 m, maximum diameter - 2.72 m, the volume of two living compartments (BO and SA) along the pressure hull - 10.45 m3, free volume - 6.5 m3. The time of active existence in orbit is up to 15 days.  
The spacecraft (mass - 2.8 tons, maximum diameter - 2.2 m, length - 2.16 m, free volume 2.5 m3) was intended to accommodate the crew (from one to three astronauts) in the orbital site, while controlling the ship in flight and during touchdowns. CA had a segmental conical shape and was structurally made in the form of a bearing aluminum welded body coated with two-layer thermal protection: the upper durable layer is made of sublimating material such as asbestos-laminate and the sublayer is made of light heat-insulating material. A frontal protective screen made of pressed asbestos-laminate was installed in the bottom of the SA (the screen was shot before landing in the parachuting section). The upper exposed power frame was made of titanium alloy. In the upper part of the SA there was a hatch with a diameter of 0.6 m. The SA had three windows. One of them was equipped with a sighting device to control the position of the ship relative to the Earth.  
The SA housed the remote control and control systems of the ship's systems (OKB LII MAP, S.G. Darevsky), shock-absorbing chairs "Kazbek" with individual lodges (plant No. 918, S.M. Alekseev, since 1964 G.I. 􏰀 believe). The central seat was occupied by the crew commander, the right - flight engineer, the left - research engineer. 

A life support system (LSS) was located in the SA, which ensured the maintenance of the atmosphere in residential compartments and the control of medical indicators of crew members. The main developers of the components of the liquid fuel cooling system: Nauka plant — atmospheric regenerators, plant No. 918 — cosmonaut flight suits, cesspool devices and portable emergency reserve (NAZ) for 5 days, IBMP - food and medical equipment, SKB AP - gas analyzer 􏰀 mososphere. The CA also housed the Mir-3 autonomous registration system for airborne parameters (NII-88, I.I. Utkin), radio communications equipment, and equipment containers. BO weighing 1.2–1.3 t consisted of two hemispheres with a diameter of 2.2 m connected by a cylindrical insert 0.3 m high, and the free volume was 4 m3. It was used as a working compartment, served as a venue for experiments, rest and nutrition of the crew. The BO had two observation windows and two hatches. The lower hatch was intended for the crew to transfer to the SA, and the side hatch (0.64 m in diameter) —for the crew to board the ship at the launch position and for the astronauts to go into outer space. During this operation, the entire BO was used as a lock chamber. The compartment also housed control panels, instruments and assemblies, household equipment and scientific equipment. Outside on the upper part of the BO there was a docking unit,  
as well as the antennas of the radio complex.  
PAO weighing 2.7–2.8 t was intended to accommodate the apparatus and equipment of the ship's main airborne systems. Structurally, the PAO consisted of three compartments: transitional (PF), instrument (software) and the unit  
nogo (AO).  
PXO was made in the form of a truss  
structure and connected CA with software. On the PFO, 10 mooring and orientation engines (DPO) with a thrust of 10 kgf were placed. Inside the PF there were three tanks with hydrogen peroxide for DPO and cylinders with boost gas of these tanks. A multivibrator command-line antenna (RRL) antenna was installed in terms of the PF diameter.  
The software was located between the PkhO and the AO. It was a sealed compartment in the form of a cylinder with a diameter of 2.1 m and a height of 0.52 m with removable covers on both sides. It housed the instruments of the orientation and motion control system, the equipment of the radio communication system, the program-time device, the telemetry and power supply systems of the ship.  
The AO was made in the form of a cylindrical shell with a diameter of 2.1 m, which then turned into a conical one and ended with a basic frame for installing the ship on the LV. The KTDU-35 corrective braking propulsion system (OKB-2, A.M. Isaev) with the main single-chamber multiple-engagement engine (up to 25 times) with a thrust of 417 kgf and a backup twin-chamber engine with a thrust of 411 kgf with steering nozzles, was located in the AO operating on generator gas. There were also two spherical tanks with fuel and two tanks with oxidizing agent, which accommodated a total of up to 900 kg of fuel. Outside on the AO, there were a radiator-radiator of a temperature control system, four DPOs with a thrust of 10 kgf each and 8 engines of orientation (DO) with a thrust of 1–1.5 kgfs.  
The ship’s compartments were closed from the outside by a vacuum-screen thermal insulation (EVTI) with an external layer of green fiberglass. All unmanned vehicles were equipped with an automatic detonation system (APO; NII-137, V.A. Kostrov).  
The ship’s orientation and motion control system (SOUD) (department No. 27 of OKB-1, B.V. Raushenbakh) ensured the orientation of the ship in orbit and maneuvers. The system also provided solar orientation, in which the ship turned so that the light fell on the solar batteries. Three-stage gyroscopes, angular velocity sensors, accelerometers, and also instruments for constructing orientations: solar, stellar, ionic sensors, and infrared vertical sensors of the Earth were used as sensors (the latter began to be installed starting from ship No7).

To operate in an orbital flight, the 7K􏰀OK ship had a command radio link system (KRL), a BR􏰀9 radio telemetry system (NII􏰀885, M.S. Ryazansky), and the Krechet television system (VNIIT, I . A.Rosselevich), the Zarya radio communication system (MNII RS, Yu.S. Bykov), which operated in the HF and VHF bands and provided communication in orbit during descent after separation from  
secs (using a slot antenna built into the heat shield of the CA manhole cover), as well as direction finding and communication after landing.  
The ship's power supply system included the main buffer (capacity 300 A · h) and backup (75 A · h) silver-zinc batteries (AB). To recharge the buffer battery, we used solar panels rigidly fixed to the PAO housing (two panels with a total area of 11–14 m2 and a span of 8–11 m). The mains voltage was 24 V.  
The 7K􏰀OK ships were equipped with the Igla rapprochement and docking system (NII-648, A.S. Mnatsakanyan), which made it possible to dock the ships both in automatic mode (main version) and in manual mode ( fallback option). The “Needles” apparatus was located in the toroidal instrument compartment on the end side of the joint-stock company (around the nozzles of KTDU-35 engines). This compartment remained on 7K􏰀OK "inherited" from the lunar project "Union". Then the lunar ship should be assembled in the Earth’s orbit by docking 7K to block 9K. After that, the “Needle” was no longer required, and in order to reduce the mass of the ship before launching to the moon, the toroidal compartment had to be reset. On the 7K􏰀OK ship, it was decided to leave the Igla equipment in the same place, but the toroidal compartment was now rigidly fixed.  
To perform docking, two types of docking units were installed on the ships: active (“pin”) and passive (“cone”). The units provided rigid mechanical pulling and connection of the ship's electrical connectors. There was no inner hatch, and so the transfer of cosmos-ships from one ship to another could only be carried out in spacesuits through open space. Depending on the docking unit, the ships were divided into two types: active (designated as 7K􏰀OK (A) and had even serial numbers) and passive (7K􏰀 OK (P) with odd factory numbers).  
The shape of the SA, the position of its center of mass and the descent control system (SUS) allowed the descent vehicle to perform a controlled descent with an aerodynamic quality of 0.25 (with an overload of not more than 3-4 g). The descent was controlled by gas  
jet engines (HRE) operating on hydrogen peroxide. The control system included two yards on yaw and two hydraulic hoses on pitch with a thrust of 7.5 kg each, as well as two hydraulic hams on roll with a thrust of 15 kg each. The SA could also descend along a ballistic trajectory (it was a reserve landing option) with an overload of 7–8 g or more.  
The 7K􏰀OK ships were equipped with two parachute systems (NIIE PDS, F.D. Tkachev, and N.A. Lobanov since 1968). The main parachuting system (CSP) had a dome with an area of 1000 m2, and the reserve parachuting system (CSP) had a dome with an area of 570 m2. Parachutes were placed in airtight containers in the SA, which had the shape of an elliptical cylinder (volume for OSP 0.27 m3 and 0.17 m3 for ZSP).  
On 7K􏰀OK ships, the crew did the landing while in the descent vehicle. For this, four soft landing engines (DMP; Iskra plant, I.I. Kartukov) were installed on the bottom of the SA, under the resettable frontal screen. The landing speed of SA on the OSB was 6–8 m / s. The DMFs were switched on directly at the surface and quenched this velocity to zero. CA could land both on land and on water.  
For the Soyuz spacecraft, the problem of crew rescue in the event of an LV accident was solved in a fundamentally new way - an emergency rescue system (CAC) was specially created. Its main element was a solid fuel propulsion system (Iskra plant) installed on the head fairing. Unlike the Vostok, where the separation of the ship from the LV could only be done after turning off its engines, the SAS Soyuz allowed the crew to be rescued in the active part of the trajectory, with the rocket engines running.  
Since the launches of the Soyuzs were to be carried out in pairs with an interval of one day, it was decided to use two launch sites: No1 (Gagarinskaya) and No31, which was used for combat duty of ICBM R􏰀7A and since 1964 for launch of unmanned spacecraft.  
The 7K􏰀OK ships were launched into orbits with an apogee of 220–230 km, a perigee of 180–210 km, an inclination of 51.7 °, and a revolution period of 88.4–88.6 min.


	48. Soyuz 7K-OK unmanned test flights

During 1966, in OKB-1, the first Soyuz flying ships were manufactured. It was assumed that at first two unmanned ships would be launched (the first active Soyuz No. 2, and then the passive No. 1) for flight tests and the first automatic docking. The next two ships (No4 and No3) will fly to the dock already with the crews on board.  
On November 28, 1966, the first Soyuz spacecraft (7K􏰀 OK (A) No 2) was launched from the 31st site, which received the official name Cosmos􏰀133. The next day, from the 1st site, it was planned to launch 7KКOK (P) No1. However, on ship No. 2, immediately after putting into orbit on the first turn, all fuel of the DPO system was consumed, because when assembling the DPO ship on a roll, they were installed with the wrong polarity. The docking was impossible, and the start of the passive ship was canceled. During flight 7K􏰀OK No2, tests were conducted on-board systems of the ship. It turned out that the control nozzles (in pitch and yaw) of the backup corrective motor (DCD) were also installed incorrectly.  
Thus, it became clear that it is impossible to properly use either KTDU or DKD for landing the ship. After analyzing the situation, it was decided to try to land the ship, issuing a braking impulse with the help of CTDU in small portions of 10-15 seconds instead of continuous operation for about 100 seconds. In five turns at the end of the first and second days of the flight, small braking pulses were transmitted, and finally, on November 30, at the 34th turn, the ship left orbit. The SA was tracked by radars over Krasnodar, Guryev, and Aktyubinsk. However, the braking impulse was not fully issued, the ship descended along an off-design trajectory and was therefore undermined by the APO system. The last time SA was recorded at an altitude of 70–100 km in the Orsk region; the debris of the SA could not be detected.  
Despite the identified errors in the operation of individual systems of the first “Union”, in this test flight it was possible to evaluate in practice some new qualities of the ship: it was checked  
on the stability of the ionic orientation system, the possibility of maneuvering and multiple switching on of the KTDU, as well as the possibility of landing the ship in case of malfunctions in the stabilization system, was confirmed. Having recommended eliminating the shortcomings, the State Commission decided to launch the second ship (No. 1) in a single test flight.  
The launch of 7K􏰀OK (P) No. 1 was planned to be carried out on December 14, 1966. But this launch did not take place. At the time of launching the LV engines, the engine of one of the side rocket units crashed abnormally, and the automation turned off the others. A command was received to end the launch and to inspect the launch vehicle. However, approximately 27 minutes after the launch attempt, the SAS spontaneously triggered, which shot the SA with the BO, and the SA landed safely 300 meters from the launch pad. Local jet fire occurred in the PAO remaining on the launch vehicle from the SAS engine jet. The fire quickly switched to a rocket, and it exploded, destroying the launch site of the 31st site. As a result of the disaster, an officer from the starting crew died. There could have been much more victims, but, fortunately, the service farms had not yet been reduced and the launch team did not have time to climb them.  
An analysis of the causes of the accident showed that the rotors of the gyroscopes of the LV control system, after removing the power supply, worked on coasting (they spin for another 40 minutes), i.e. gyroscopes continued their work, tracking the spatial position of the pH. As a result of this, the control system took the Earth's rotation around its axis as the exit of the LV angular deviations in flight beyond the permissible limits and issued a command to turn on the SAS.  
Unexpected was the ignition of the PAO with the transition to the launch vehicle. The reason was the use of a combustible coolant in the ship's thermal control system. After the necessary improvements, it was decided to conduct another single test flight. For this, ship No. 3 was urgently converted from manned to unmanned and prepared for flight.  
The launch of 7K􏰀OK (P) No3 (Cosmos􏰀140) took place on February 7, 1967 from the 1st site. During a two-day flight, orientation systems, power supply systems, as well as KTDU and DKD were tested. At the same time, malfunctions of the solar-star orientation system were detected (because of this, the ship did not spin on the Sun several times). At the 22nd turn, the KTDU worked normally, raising the orbit of the ship. On February 9, at the 33rd turn, it was switched on again, but now for braking - and the ship left orbit. However, instead of a controlled descent, he performed a ballistic descent, landing in an off-design area - on the ice of the Aral Sea. After some time, the SA sank 3 km from the coast at a depth of about 10 m.  
Raising the SA to the surface was a unique operation. It was attended by divers and the Mi6 helicopter, which barely pulled the SA out of the water and carried it ashore. Upon examination, it was found that the bottom of the SA in the central part has melted a hole of 30 x 10 mm in size and that the SA was depressurized during descent. The cause of the burnout of the bottom of the SA was a violation of the integrity of the frontal heat-shielding screen in the vicinity of the technological plug. After this incident, the frontal screen was made monolithic, and also somewhat increased the lateral heat protection of the SA.  
The results of the three unmanned launches of Soyuz were subjected to a thorough analysis, and relevant recommendations were issued to eliminate all identified observations and failures. After that, the majority of managers and chief designers favored the transition to manned flights of the “Union”. This decision was motivated by the fact that, according to the detected failures, the spacecraft systems were finalized, and the presence of astronauts on its board will only increase the reliability of the flight, since the crew will be able to take control at any time. It should also be noted that the decision to launch manned “Unions” was undoubtedly influenced by the insistent demand of the party and government leaders to resume flights of the Soviet cosmonauts, timed to coincide with the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution. After all, by this time in the USSR for almost two years there were no manned flights ...  
So a decision was made, which turned out to be fatal.


	49. Soyuz 1:the tragic flight of Komarov

The preparation of astronauts for flights on Soyuz spacecraft began in September 1965. On the orders of General N. Kamanin, a group was formed in the CPC, which included: Yu. Gagarin, V. Komarov, A. Nikolayev, V .Bykovsky, E.Khrunov, V.Gorbatko, A.Voronov and P.Kolodin. The first four trained as ship commanders, and the rest as crew members in space; For them, a transition from an active to a passive ship was planned. The astronauts of both ships were considered to be one crew, which included four people: the commander of the active ship (he is the commander of the entire crew), the commander of the passive ship and two crew members,one each on the active and passive ships.  
In mid-1966, the preparation of the group was complicated by the fact that the chief designer of the TsKBEM V. Mishin entered into sharp confrontation with the head of cosmonaut training, General N. Kamanin, on the formation of crews for the Soyuz spacecraft. V. Mishin stubbornly insisted on the inclusion in the crews of candidates for astronauts from TsKBEM (the group was formed in May 1966), and N. Kamanin stubbornly resisted this. The debate and debate were long and heated, almost all the leaders of the space industry in one way or another participated in a debate about who should fly to the Soyuz. As a result, in the fall of 1966, a compromise was made: only the cosmonauts of the Air Force CPK will be the commanders of the ships, and the crew members will be one cosmonaut from the Air Force CPK and the Central Command and Control Bureau.  
In accordance with this decision, on November 16, 1966, two crews were finally formed to carry out the first flight on Soyuz:  
◆ V. Komarov, V. Bykovsky, E. Khrunov, A. Eliseev;  
◆ Y. Gagarin, A. Nikolayev, V. Gorbatko, V. Kubasov.  
In January 1967, the third crew was formed:  
◆ G. Beregovoi, V. Shatalov, P. Kolodin, V. Volkov. The fourth members of these crews were candidates from TsKBEM.  
In February – March 1967, the first two crews underwent intensive training. Ship commanders trained on a special simulator “Volga”, which simulated the process of rapprochement and docking of ships, and crew members practiced their actions on the transition from ship to ship in the thermal chamber TBK-60 and on board the Tu-104 aircraft, flying in zero gravity.  
On March 14–15, the first crew underwent a 30-hour comprehensive training at the CPC, and the second crew on March 17–18. On March 16, Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov celebrated his 40th birthday.  
On March 30, both crews passed theoretical exams at the CPC “excellent” and on April 8 arrived at the cosmodrome. For two weeks, pre-launch preparations were carried out. On April 20, a meeting of the State Commission was held, at which it was approved: the main - the crew of V. Komarov, the backup - the crew of Yu. Gagarin.

On April 23, 1967, at 03:35 a.m., DMV, the manned spacecraft Soyuz-1 (7K􏰀OK (A) No. 4) with the astronaut V. Komarov launched from the “Gagarin” site No. 1. On April 24, at 03:10 UHV with the restored 31st site, the launch of the Soyuz-2 spacecraft (7K􏰀OK (P) No5) with a crew of three cosmonauts (V. Bykovsky, E. Khrunov and A. Yeliseyev) was planned.  
However, immediately after launching the Soyuz, problems began. The left panel of the solar batteries with the backup radio telemetry antenna and the HF radio line did not open, catching on the EVTI on the PAO skirt. The solar-star orientation system did not work because the 45K sensor was fogged up, and therefore the automatic spin of the ship to the Sun did not work. This, in turn, led to the fact that buffer batteries could not be recharged from solar panels. The ship was rapidly losing energy reserves, which significantly limited its life. V. Komarov several times tried to spin manually, but to no avail (due to the asymmetry caused by an unopened battery, this could not be done).  
Having analyzed the critical situation on board, the State Commission decided to cancel the launch of Soyuz􏰀2 and to complete the early landing of Soyuz􏰀1. At the 16th round, all recommendations were transmitted to V. Komarov, and he began to prepare for the descent at the next round. But the ion orientation system did not work, the engine did not turn on, and the landing failed. Only at the 19th turn did V.Komarov manage to reduce the ship from orbit. The engine gave a given brake impulse, having worked, according to the report of the cosmos, 146 sec. However, the DPO could not cope with the disturbing moment due to the asymmetry of the ship, and the descent passed along a ballistic trajectory.  
During the decline to the formation of plasma V. Komarov conducted a report. The moment of separation of the ship compartments was approaching. The astronaut reported: “Now there will be a separation ... ”, and the voice drowned in the noise of the radio. These were the last words of Vladimir Mikhailovich heard on Earth.  
Then a catastrophe happened. After separating the compartments and decelerating the SA in the upper atmosphere, at the set time, the hatch of the main parachute container hatch was shot. The brake parachute opened, but he could not pull the main dome out of the container. According to the logic of the system, a reserve parachute was put into action, but it did not open, as it was in the aerodynamic shadow of a braking parachute. As a result, the descent vehicle crashed into the ground at great speed (more than 50 m / s), crashed and burned like a match from hydrogen peroxide from bursting tanks. Cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov died ...  
The fire was eliminated by the search group, parachuted from the Il-14 plane, which detected a burning SA. After extinguishing, a terrible picture was revealed: the mangled, burnt and mixed with the ground aggregates and structural elements of the ship lay in frozen aluminum puddles.  
The logbook and tape recorder with the astronaut's notes burned out. There was no radio communication during the fall of the SA, since the main and reserve parachutes did not open (in their lines there are antennas). It was likely that the astronaut could transmit before the collision with the earth through a slot antenna in the VHF FM band, but no one heard him, because at that moment there were no airborne search and rescue services in the landing area. Thus, the allegations that somewhere there are secret dying records of V. Komarov do not correspond to reality. What did Vladimir Mikhailovich think about in the last minutes of his life, did he say anything, addressing, perhaps, to his family and friends “cosmonauts” there, we are not destined to find out ...  
Carefully digging the ashes with shovels, the search engines removed the charred remains of V. Komarov from the wreckage of the broken apparatus. The group, headed by General N. Kamanin, delivered the remains of the deceased astronaut to Moscow on the night of April 24–25. After cremation, an urn with the ashes of V. Komarov was installed on April 25 in the Red Banner Hall of the Central House of Artists for farewell. The funeral at the state level took place on April 26: the urn was walled up in the Kremlin wall on Moscow Red Square.  
The government commission investigating the Soyuz-1 catastrophe (chairman - head of the LII V.V. Utkin) came to the conclusion that the reason for the absence of the main parachute was clamped by the walls of the container in which it was located. The clamping occurred due to the pressure drop (1 atm inside the SA and reduced pressure in the container at the height of the parachute system entry). The fact that this did not happen during the tests was explained as a “probabilistic factor”. However, after the completion of the work of the commission at TsKBEM, there was another, unofficial, version of what happened: the SAs of manned ships No. 4 and No. 5, unlike the previous unmanned ones, were put into an autoclave for the polymerization of thermal protection together with parachute containers (like 􏰀 was used in the process technology). It turned out that they were not covered by regular covers. As a result, the walls of the containers could become coated with a coating of resins, which sharply increased the friction coefficient. This assumption explained why the defect did not manifest itself in aircraft tests: there were no thermal protection on the prototypes of the SA and therefore they were not put into an autoclave.  
The following experiment was carried out at TsKBEM: the Soyuz-2 (No5) non-launched spacecraft was suspended from the parachute and began to slowly raise it, measuring the force at which the package with the main parachute would exit. Imagine the surprise of specialists when they saw that the SA weighing about 2800 kg dangles on a brake parachute, like on a rope, and the main parachute did not come out of the container, although it had to go out with an effort of no more than 1500 kgf. ..  
Only now it became clear that another catastrophe could have occurred. If Soyuz-2 started, docked with Soyuz-1 and E. Khrunov and A. Yeliseyev transferred from the ship to the ship, then three cosmonauts instead of one might have died on Soyuz-1, and after during the landing of Soyuz-2, V. Bykovsky might have died.  
The catastrophe of Soyuz􏰀1 and the death of V. Komarov were a shock for the whole country. Everyone who participated in the development and manufacture of the “Unions”, in preparing the crews and ships for launch, experienced it severely. The State Commission decided to carry out a thorough revision of the 7K􏰀OK, perform ground and flight tests of unmanned vehicles and only after that again return to manned flights.


	50. Soyuz 7K-OK:more unmanned launches

After the Soyuz􏰀1 disaster, the TsKBEM together with the Scientific Research Institute of Autonomous Institutions (earlier the NIIE PDS) and the LII carried out the necessary modifications to the 7K􏰀OK ships, and first of all its parachute systems: the volume of parachute containers was increased, their shape was changed from cylindrical Each conical, polishing of the inner walls of the containers was introduced. Since the fall of 1967, autonomous tests of the modified elements and design of the ship began. Flight tests of parachute systems and a comprehensive experimental testing of the SA and its units were carried out: a series of discharges (about 40) of the CA weight models from the Tu-16 and An-12 aircraft was performed, as well as a control copier experiment by dumping from the Mi-6 helicopter with simulating the limiting (18 m / s) horizontal landing speeds. Simultaneously with ground tests, flight design tests of unmanned vehicles in real space flight conditions began.  
On October 27, 1967, 7K􏰀OK (A) No6 (Cosmos􏰀186) started from the 31st site. On October 30, 7K􏰀OK (P) No5 (the former Soyuz-2, the launch of which was canceled in April 1967) was launched from the 1st site; Now it is called "Cosmos􏰀188." The passive ship was put into a given orbit and turned out to be only 24 km from the active one. A rapprochement command was immediately issued. And finally, the long-awaited luck - the ships docked! Moreover, this occurred outside the visibility range of the means of the command-measuring complex. Thus, on October 30, 1967, the world's first automatic docking of two spacecraft was completed.  
However, a detailed analysis of telemetry showed that the docking ended only with a mechanical capture: the mooring occurred during a large lateral drift of one ship relative to another, and for this reason the directing pin of the active ship bent and could not fully enter to the receiver of the passive ship. Full docking did not work. The ships performed a rigid mechanical grip, but there was no complete contraction of the vehicles and no electrical contact. In addition, a large fuel consumption in the process of convergence was revealed.  
For two turns, the flight was performed in docked state, and then the ships were undocked. Now they had to test the “Unions” at the landing stage. On October 31, the Cosmos-186 active ship was the first to land: due to a malfunction in the solar-star orientation system, instead of a controlled descent, it performed ballistic, but nevertheless made a soft landing . They decided to land the passive ship Cosmos-188 on November 2 using the ionic orientation system, but it also failed. A manual landing was made. 

The State Commission was in no hurry with the resumption of manned flights and decided to launch two more unmanned "Union" to perform repeated automatic docking.  
On April 14, 1968, the active ship 7K􏰀OK (A) No8 (Cosmos􏰀212) was launched. The next day, the passive 7K􏰀OK (P) No7 (Cosmos􏰀213) was launched into orbit. This time, the approach, mooring and docking were performed impeccably - and the “Unions” successfully docked in automatic mode. On April 19 and 20, the ships landed on Earth. The orientation system worked without comment, and both ships first made a controlled descent using the CMS. However, here there were some complications. On these two ships, parachute strand shooting machines were turned off (they needed improvement), and strong winds raged in the landing area, and because of this, both SAs, after a soft landing, dragged several kilometers along the steppes by parachutes. Nevertheless, in general, the State Commission recognized the flights of ships No. 7 and No. 8 as successful.  
From August 28 to September 1, 1968, a single test flight of the unmanned 7K􏰀OK (P) No9 (“Cosmos􏰀238”) passed without comment. It was a test flight. Only after that did the State Commission decide to return to manned flights again.


	51. Soyuz 3:an aborted docking

After the Soyuz-1 crash, the training of the next crews was suspended for a month, and the backup of Komarov, Yuri Gagarin, was completely excluded from preparing for the flight. He was also banned from flying and parachute training for a completely understandable reason: now no one dared to risk the life of the first cosmonaut on the planet.  
On May 23, 1967, the crew of the Unions introduced new cosmonauts to replace the retired ones (V. Komarov and Yu. Gagarin).  
➊ G. Beregovoi, V. Bykovsky, E. Khrunov, A. Eliseev.  
➋ B. Volynov, A. Nikolayev, V. Gorbatko, V. Kubasov.  
➌ G. Shonin, V. Shatalov, P. Kolodin, V. Volkov.  
Preparation began in June 1967, but from the fall of 1967 until January 1968 V. Bykovsky, E. Khrunov, B. Volynov, A. Nikolayev, V. Gorbatko and G. Shonin passed The last examination session was defended by theses at the N.E. Zhukovsky Academy, and for this period the training of the crews was suspended. In February 1968, the Soyuzov crews again began preparations for the flight, but in other convoys due to the fact that V. Bykovsky was transferred to the program of the Moon overflight. Now, in the first crew, G. Beregova, B. Volynov, E. Khrunov and A. Eliseev began to prepare; in the second - G. Shonin, A. Nikolayev, V. Gorbatko and V. Kubasov; in the third - V. Shatalov, A. Filipchenko, P. Kolodin and V. Volkov.  
Back in May 1967, a statement from K. Feoktistov came to the State Commission with a request to appoint him commander of the Soyuz. He was actively supported by V. Mishin and some other leaders. N.Kamanin, on the other hand, was sharply negative about the re-flight of K. Feoktistov, especially as a ship commander, considering him unsuitable for health reasons. In June 1967, K. Feoktistov began  
to prepare for the flight on the basis of TsKBEM, since General N. Kamanin strongly opposed his training in the TsPK. And on February 1968, N. Kamanin, under pressure from various leaders, was forced to agree to the preparation of K. Feoktistov at the CPC, who began to prepare in the crew of G. Beregovoy.  
During the year after the Soyuz-1 crash, the necessary modifications to the ship were carried out, four unmanned Soyuz unmanned vehicles were launched, and two automatic dockings were completed. But now many space program managers have begun to be cautious and reinsure. All of May 1968 was held in discussions about the future program of flights of the "Unions". Various options were considered: the initial version “1 + 3” (one astronaut on the active ship and three on the passive one with the transition of two of them to the active ship), more cautious options “1 + 2” (with the transition of one astronaut ) and “2 + 2” (without transition) and the very “careful” option “0 + 1” (just docking with an unmanned ship).  
On May 29, 1968, the Council of Chief Constructors adopted the following program of flights of the Unions: first, the test flight of one unmanned ship (launched on August 28, 1968 under the name “Cosmos-238”; the flight passed without comment), then flight according to the program "0 + 1" and only after that flight "1 + 3".  
On June 10, 1968, the State Commission approved this program. At the same time, N. Kamanin proposed to prepare three cosmonauts (the main and two backups) for G. 0 + 1 flight: G. Beregovoy, B. Volynov, and V. Shatalov for flight “1 + 3”. Volynova, G. Shonina, E. Khrunov,and A.Yeliseyev,as the main crew. On July 22, 1968, these crews were approved by the decision of the Military Industrial Commission (MIC) under the Council of Ministers of the USSR and in early August began direct preparation for flights. On September 15, 1968, cosmonauts preparing for the flight to Soyuz-3 under the 0 + 1 program passed complex training exercises on the Volga simulator (the daily flight was practiced). At the same time, the main candidate G. Beregova received a general rating of “satisfactory”, and his understudies B. Volynov and V. Shatalov - “good” and “excellent”, respectively. During the second training session on September 24, G. Beregovoi received “good”, and both understudies - “excellent”. And only on September 27 at the third final test of training, all three received excellent marks.  
On October 15, the astronauts flew to the cosmodrome for the final pre-launch preparation. On October 23, a meeting of the State Commission was held, at which a decision was made to appoint G. Beregovoy as commander of the Soyuz-3 ship, and B. Volynov and V. Shatalov as his understudies.

On 25 October 1968 at 9:00 UTC started Soyuz 2, and the next day at 11:34 Beregovoy soared into space. He began along his specialized rendezvous track. Thd docking did not work out and the automation led the ships to a safe distance, G. Beregovoy made an attempt to fly around Soyuz-2, which turned away from it, and dock again. However,even this attempt was unsuccessful. The stock of the working fluid of the Soyuz-3 orientation and stabilization system was  
almost completely consumed. The remaining hydrogen peroxide was only enough for orientation before descent to Earth. The commission’s conclusion was unambiguous: the astronaut’s error was the reason for the non-fulfillment of the flight program (failure to dock).  
Nevertheless, it should be noted that it is impossible to lay all blame for the failure of a flight mission only on George Timofeevich. The following factors should be taken into account: the docking was carried out at the very first turn after the launch of Soyuz-3 into orbit (at that time the astronaut was in a state of acute adaptation to space flight conditions). In addition, the joint was complicated by night conditions, and therefore the astronaut had a poor view of his target. In addition, he had no one to ask for help and tips, because he was outside the radio visibility of terrestrial communications. It should also be noted that the process of approaching ships in an inverted position on the Volga simulator was not developed.  
In official TASS reports, this word was not said about this failure. Moreover, Beregovoy’s flight was presented as the next significant success of the Soviet cosmonautics program. In the meantime,Beregovoy was able to conduct Earth observations of a scientific nature,biological experiments,and conducted two television tours of Soyuz 3. He also used his engines to correct his flight path twice. Having listened to the reports of specialists and chief designers, the State Commission decided to land both ships. On October 28, the Soyuz-2 flight completed, and on October 30, Soyuz-3 completed its landing.

October 31, the day after landing, G. Beregovoy made a report to the State Commission for the analysis of flight. Talking about the failed docking, he reported the following: “From 200 meters I began to control the mooring manually. The ships came closer to 30–40 m. At that moment, I clearly saw that the onboard lights of the Soyuz-2 form a trapezoid, and I can never drive them into one line. I realized that there would be no docking on that turn, and decided to “freeze” and wait for dawn. On the bright side of the Earth, I saw that I was near Soyuz-2, but the ship’s courses diverged by 30 °. I made another attempt to get closer to Soyuz􏰀2, but the courses began to diverge even more. So I left the vicinity of Soyuz 2 and commenced an independent flight program.”


	52. Soyuz 4/5:the first docking of manned ships

After a thorough analysis of the reasons for the breakdown of the connection between Soyuz-3 and Soyuz-2 and making adjustments to the crew training methodology, the State Commission decided in early November 1968 to begin preparations for the flight under the 1 + 3 program in accordance with the previously approved plan. To make the flight program more reliable, it was decided to use the most trained cosmonauts, and therefore the crews were re-reorganized. Now the main crew includes:  
◆ V. Shatalov, B. Volynov, E. Khrunov and A. Yeliseyev.  
The following crews were assigned to the backup crew:  
◆ G. Shonin, A. Filipchenko, V. Gorbatko and V. Kubasov.  
The astronauts have long been preparing for the program of docking "Unions", and therefore their preparation took only a month. Crew trainings began in November 1968, and on December 14, cosmonauts successfully passed comprehensive examination trainings at the CPC. On December 23, the convoys were approved by the military-industrial complex under the USSR Council of Ministers. The next day, the astronauts flew to the Baikonur cosmodrome for prelaunch training.  
The 13th Soviet cosmonaut V. Shatalov was due to start on January 13, 1969, on Monday. The departing astronauts: E. Khrunov and A. Yeliseyev,with Vladimir Aleksandrovich,joked, according to the canons of mysticism, his start could not have taken place on that day ... It did not happen. Just 9 minutes before the start command, a failure of one of the gyroscopic instruments on the LV was detected. The start was postponed for a day. V. Shatalov became the first Soviet astronaut who had to leave the spacecraft at the launch pad due to the cancellation of the launch of the LV!  
The launch of Soyuz􏰀4 (7K􏰀OK (A) No12) was launched from the 31st site on January 14, 1969. Thus, the active ship was the first to enter orbit (during the launches of Soyuz􏰀2 and Soyuz 􏰀3 ”the first passive ship was launched). A day after the start of the active ship, on January 15, Soyuz-5 (7K􏰀OK (P) No13) went to meet with him from the 1st site.  
Even during pair flights of unmanned “Unions”, specialists for brevity designated the active ship with the letter “A”, and the passive one with the letter “B”. It was convenient and simple, and therefore, all managers quickly got used to this designation of ships. When it came to manned flights, it was decided to select the crew callsigns so that they also began with the letters “A” and “B”. This is how the commander of the active ship V. Shatalov became “Cupid”, and the crew of the passive Soyuz-5 ”became“ Baikals ”. By the way, V. Shatalov did not like his call sign and in the next day he changed “Amur” to “Granite”.  
So, both ships were put into orbit, but now, with the docking, they were in no hurry to give spacecraft time to adapt to space conditions. The approach and docking was decided to be carried out one day after the start of the passive ship, moreover, over the territory of the USSR, in the radio visibility zone of ground-based communications, and during daylight hours. Thus, the shortcomings in organizing the docking process of Soyuz-3 were taken into account.  
The automatic rapprochement of the ships began on January 16 at 10:37 UHF (at the 34th turn of Soyuz􏰀4 and the 18th turn of Soyuz􏰀5). At a distance of 100 meters V. Shatalov and B. Volynov switched to manual control and, as on a simulator, carried out the mooring and docking of the ships. This happened at 11:20 DMV. At the MCC everyone exulted. Here is how General N. Kamanin describes this event in his diaries: “Everything went amazingly well, the astronauts worked expertly. We didn’t have to help them from the Earth, we worked only at the reception. It was pleasant to watch on television the confident rapprochement of Soyuz, accompanied by a fascinating report by Shatalov. ”  
It was a long-awaited success. The streak of failures, crashes and breakdowns, which relentlessly accompanied the flight tests of the Unions for two years, ended. Newspapers and magazines were full of loud jubilant headlines, and docked ships even bumped into the first experimental space orbital station.

But the flight program was still a long way off. Now, two cosmonauts had to make the transition through open space from one ship to another. Immediately after the docking, E. Khrunov and A. Yeliseyev in the household compartment of Soyuz-5 began to prepare for this operation. They put on the spacesuits; B. Volynov shot his comrades on a movie camera, and then went into the descent unit and pulled up the access hatch behind him (commanders B. Volynov and V. Shatalov did not have spacesuits).  
The transition was carried out at the 35th turn of Soyuz-4. Yevgeny Khrunov was the first to cross, and Aleksey Yeliseyev was filming his camera. After Khrunov got to the entrance hatch of the Soyuz-4 household compartment, Yeliseyev set off. The astronauts masterfully coped with their task. But still they had two hitches. When leaving Evgeny Khrunov’s exit from the Soyuz-5 household compartment, the hitch got tangled and the fan toggle switch in the spacesuit accidentally turned off. The astronauts quickly dealt with this problem, but Alexey Yeliseyev had a more serious failure. He had to put a movie camera in the sofa of the household compartment, on which cosmonauts dressed in spacesuits and the entire passage of Khrunov were filmed. But, in spite of all efforts, Yeliseyev could not lock the sofa cover, and after he emerged from the household compartment, a movie camera flew out after him. Thus, the unique film about the historical transition of astronauts from one ship to another was not preserved. Only television shots of rather poor quality remained. The total time spent by the astronauts in airless space was approximately one hour.  
E. Khrunov and A. Yeliseyev entered history not only as the first “space walkers” on ships, but also as the first space postmen, having delivered several newspapers for January 15, 1969 to V. Shatalov, which reported the launch of space 􏰀 Soyuz􏰀4 ship.  
In the docked state, the ships flew for 4 hours 33 minutes 49 seconds. Then they undocked, and the astronauts began to prepare for the landing. On January 17, the crew of Soyuz-4 returned safely to Earth. On January 18, Soyuz􏰀5 went to land. And here the 13th ship (factory number “Soyuz-5”) fully showed its “devilish” character. After the brake pulse was issued, the command to separate the compartments of the ship passed, but for some reason, the instrumentation compartment (PAO) did not separate from the descent vehicle (SA). The PAO, located on the side of the bottom of the SA, trailed behind, like a trailer, not allowing the descent vehicle to return by landing, with the bottom forward to the oncoming flow.  
As a result, the descent of Soyuz-5 turned out to be not just abnormal, but emergency. B. Volynov immediately appreciated the complexity and danger of the situation he was in, but he couldn’t do anything. (due to the overturn of the SA, the overloads acted in the opposite direction). Soon, a burning smell smelled in the cabin: the hermetic rubber gasket of the hatch began to melt (the hatch itself had a heat-protective coating, but not much). At any moment, the rubber could not withstand the heating - and then the hot gases bursting into the cab would burn everything inside in an instant. This moment could be every next second ...  
What then survived Boris Volynov, he knows only. He remained alive only by a miracle, and even thanks to the constructors ... A powerful and strong titanium frame, on which the hatch was mounted, “kept” the onslaught of fire until the pyro locks were triggered by the signal from the temperature sensors and the PAO separated from the descent apparatus. After that, the SA turned forward and went along a ballistic trajectory (maximum overload was 9 g).  
Here is how B.Volynov describes the landing of Soyuz-5: “At an altitude of 80–90 km, the SA, having separated from the PAO, began to“ somersault ”and then gradually switched to rotation around its longitudinal axis. On an altitude of 10 km triggered the parachute system. After the main dome came out, the parachute lines began to twist into a harness. Then there was a sharp stop of the rotation of the SA, and there was a rattle of metal. These are the creaking earrings to which the parachute strands are attached. Fortunately, the parachute did not “form” and the SA began to rotate in the opposite direction, and so it rotated to the very Earth. Therefore, the landing was extremely tough. The blow fell on the shoulders and the back of the head and was of such strength that I had a fracture of the roots of the teeth of the upper jaw, but I remained alive ... Saved the bed. Then I opened the hatch because it was difficult to breathe from the burning. Ash poured down on me, into which the sealing rubber turned, and on the manhole cover a “cap” was formed of foaming heat-resistant steel ... ”  
It would seem that all the unrest and anxiety were behind us, but another unpleasant and dangerous incident was waiting for the astronauts on earth. This happened on January 22, 1969, when Moscow solemnly met the new heroes of outer space. At the entrance to the Borovitsky Gates of the Kremlin, an honorary motorcade was spotted by a man who was preparing an assassination attempt on the Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee L. Brezhnev. Having missed the head vehicle in which V. Shatalov, B. Volynov, A. Yeliseyev and E. Khrunov drove, he began to shoot at the next one, assuming that Brezhnev was in it. He did not know that the car with the members of the government had already overtaken the motorcade while driving from the airfield to Moscow and entered the Kremlin much earlier.  
The second car of the motorcade was driven by G. Beregovoi, A. Leonov, and A. Nikolayev with V. Bykovsky The terrorist fired at them. He fired at once from two pistols and managed to shoot eight times before being killed by KGB and police officers. The driver of the car the terrorist shot was mortally wounded, a KGB officer riding a motorbike in a motorcade was lightly wounded, one of the bullets tangentially hit Alexei Leonov's overcoat. No one else was hurt. The ceremonial meeting in the Kremlin dedicated to honoring the crews of Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 was held as if there was no such incident.  
The successful flight and docking of Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 completed the first stage of the Soyuz test flights. True, this required 13 ships instead of four planned, and the docking was not carried out in April 1967, but in January 1969. The achieved result was now required to be fixed ...


	53. Soyuz 6/7/8:triple flight

After the docking of the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 ships, which were successfully carried out in January 1969, the heads of the Central Command and Control Committee and the Air Force Central Command began discussing further plans for launching the Soyuz, and in February 1969 a preliminary 􏰀 fast schedule of flights of the next ships. In accordance with it, it was proposed that the ship 7K􏰀OK No. 14 with an crew of two cosmonauts be launched in April 1969 to perform a single seven-day flight. The ships No. 15 (three astronauts) and No. 16 (two astronauts) were scheduled to be put into orbit in August-September 1969 for the docking (flight in the docked state for 3 days, and the flight duration of each ship - 7 days ) Soon, this plan of flights of the "Unions" was submitted for approval to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU D.F.Ustinov, who was responsible for the implementation of space programs. Finding out about the plan presented to him, Dmitry Fedorovich issued his resolution: “It’s rather liquid, it would be better ...” - and returned it for revision.  
At TsKBEM and TsPK they began to think how to make the plan “thicker”, and they came up with it. Someone recalled that back in 1961, immediately after the flight of German Titov, SP Korolev proposed to carry out a group flight of three “Vostoks” at once. However, at that time, many considered the idea of S.P. Korolev too bold and premature. As a result, in 1962 a group flight was completed, but only of two ships: Vostok-3 and Vostok-4. Now, the proposal to launch three “Unions” at once was accepted by all with a bang. Moreover, it was decided to dock the active ship No16 with the passive No15 and fly to them at a close distance of the ship No14 for taking photos and filming  
matching "Unions". It was decided not to conduct the transfer of the cosmonauts from ship to ship, but instead to carry out more various experiments and studies. So, the plan for the next manned flight was determined. That was what we needed. It was such a triple flight with a docking that could make a proper impression on people both in our country and abroad.  
Crews were urgently formed, and at the end of February 1969 they began preparations. The crew of the ship 7K􏰀OK No14 were assigned:  
◆ G. Shonin and V. Kubasov.  
The crew 7K􏰀OK (P) No15: ◆ A.Filipchenko, V.Volkov  
and V. Gorbatko.  
For flight on 7K􏰀OK (A) No16:  
◆ A. Nikolayev and V. Sevastyanov.  
There was only one Soyuz simulator in the CPC, and therefore there was no possibility to train three more crews of understudies. For this reason, only one backup crew was formed for all three ships. It includes:  
◆ A. Kuklin, G. Grechko and P. Kolodin.  
They had a triple load, as they had to study three flight programs at once.

On April 25, 1969, a meeting of the State Commission on “Unions” was held, at which the triple-flight program was considered and finally approved. It was determined that the duration of the flight of each ship will be from four to five days, and after completing the docking of the Unions (No. 16 and No. 15), they will fly in the docked state for two or three days. In addition, the astronauts had to conduct a large number of experiments, the most important of which were the following: photo and film shooting from a distance of 300 to 50 meters of the process of approaching, landing, docking and undocking of ships (the “Inspection” experiment ); the study of methods of electric welding of metals in space using a special installation “Volcano”, created at the Kiev Institute of Electric Welding, Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (director B.E. Paton); observation of ballistic missile launches (the military experiment “Lead”, which was supposed to be carried out as early as 1966 at “Voskhod􏰀 3”, but then it was not carried out because the flight of this ship was canceled). The State Commission set a launch date for ships - August 1969.  
Until July, the training of crews was on schedule and without complications. But in early July, when there was less than a month left until the training was completed, doctors unexpectedly discovered a heart block in Anatoly Kuklin (rupture of a small blood vessel) after one of the centrifuge exercises. He was urgently taken for examination and treatment to the hospital, and later A. Kuklin was expelled from the cosmonaut corps for health reasons. Instead, E. Khrunov was appointed the commander of the backup crew, who only made space flight half a year ago. However, E. Khrunov was soon removed from training. Here is what General N.P. Kamanin wrote in his diaries: “After three weeks of preparation for the flight, Khrunov had a car accident. Khrunov had to be replaced by Shatalov, who, referring to the limited time for training, asked to include Yeliseyev already flying with him in his crew. ”  
Thus, in the early days of August, a new backup crew was formed consisting of:  
◆ V. Shatalov, A. Yeliseyev, P. Kolodin.  
He started training on August 9th. G. Grechko continued his training as a backup astronaut.  
At the end of July, the crews (except for the duplicating one) passed complex test tests. At the same time, the crews of G. Shonin and A. Filipchenko received a rating of “on behalf”, and the crew of A. Nikolayev received a “satisfactory”. Eight additional trainings were assigned to A. Nikolayev and V. Sevastyanov. In these classes, they again made serious mistakes that could disrupt not only the docking of the ships, but also affect the successful outcome of the flight. Therefore, on August 20, it was decided to prepare two equal crews for active ship No. 16: A. Nikolayev – V. Sevastyanov and V. Shatalov – A. Yeliseyev. The new crews of all three ships remained P. Kolodin and G. Grechko.  
At the meeting of the State Commission on August 26, a new deadline for the launch of the Soyuz was set - on the beginning of October 1969, since the crews of A. Nikolayev and V. Shatalov needed time for additional training. Then it was decided that one of the three crews would fly without a docking system. On September 17,the crew of V. Shatalov was recognized as better prepared for flight than the crew of A. Nikolayev.  
On September 18, a meeting of the military-industrial complex under the Council of Ministers of the USSR took place. Having listened and discussed reports on the readiness for flight of the three Unions, the members of the commission finally approved the crews of the ships. G. Shonin and V. Kubasov were approved for the flight on Soyuz-6, A. Filipchenko, V. Volkov and V. Gorbatko on Soyuz-7, and V. Shatalov on Soyuz-8 and A. Yeliseyev. Colonel V. Shatalov was also appointed commander of a group of spacecraft and the head of the orbital station (the so-called docked “Unions” were then called). A.Nikolaev, V.Sevastyanov, P.Kolodin, and G. Grechko were approved as backups.  
On September 22, astronauts flew to the Baikonur Cosmodrome on two Tu-124 aircraft, and prelaunch preparations began. The work was carried out in a very intense rhythm, because three ships, three rockets and seven astronauts were preparing for the launch at once. The "extreme days," as the astronauts say, flew by quickly. Immediately at two sites (1st and 31st), the launch teams at the same time began to prepare two ships for launch: Soyuz-6 and Soyuz-7.

And so, on October 11, 1969, Soyuz-6 was the first to launch from the 31st site. The peculiarity of this ship was that it did not have a docking unit installed, because it should not be docked, and therefore, by the way, it was simply designated 7K􏰀OK No14. The absence of a docking unit (and this is an economy in terms of ship weight) made it possible to install a rather bulky “Vulkan” welding unit in the household compartment.  
On October 12, Soyuz7 (7K􏰀OK (P) No15) entered orbit. On the same day, the Soyuz-6 crew successfully completed the Lead experiment: G. Shonin and V. Kubasov, using a special device, detonated both ballistic missiles launched for this purpose.  
On October 13, Soyuz􏰀8 started (7K􏰀 OK (A) No.16). V. Shatalov, like during his first start, got a Monday and the thirteenth. Then, on January 13, 1969, its start was postponed for a day due to the failure of one of the devices on the launch vehicle. And this time the flight of V. Shatalov with A. Yeliseyev was on the verge of cancellation. And this is what happened. When the astronauts had already taken their places in the spacecraft, one of the three knitting needles was broken at the helm of the hatch between the descent vehicle and the household compartment. It took a long time to replace the helm, and then the launch would have to be postponed for a day. In this situation, the chief designer of TsKBEM V. Mishin took responsibility and allowed to continue preparations for the start. The launch of Soyuz8 was normal - and V. Shatalov and A. Yeliseyev set off for space for the second time.  
The Soviet Union again surprised the whole world by launching three manned spacecraft into space at once every day. Seven Soviet cosmonauts were simultaneously in orbit. In the press, three “Unions” were called the “space escade”, and the astronauts were called the “magnificent seven”.  
According to the plan, on October 14, the docking of Soyuz8 and Soyuz7 was to take place. But when they tried to start an active approach to Soyuz􏰀7, it turned out that the Igla radio-electronic docking system on Soyuz􏰀8 did not work in the automatic vehicle proximity control mode (there was no radio capture) . As a result, the ships flew past each other at a distance of several kilometers. The MCC began to think about how to save the situation. In the end, they decided to take a desperate attempt: try to reduce the distance between the ships to a few hundred meters (after that it was possible to switch to manual control of the mooring) without using the Igla automatic approach system , but only due to the exact maneuver calculated by ballistics in the MCC. The second docking attempt was carried out on October 15, and also unsuccessfully. The ships managed to reach a distance of only 1700 meters, and after that they again dispersed. It became clear that the joint had broken. The cosmonauts did everything in their power, but to complete the connection “by eye” using only intuition and not instruments, they, of course, could not. The Soyuz ship again showed its obstinate character. A year ago, in October 1968, the docking failed due to the fault of the astronaut, and now the equipment failed.  
It was an unfortunate failure for both astronauts and specialists on Earth, because they failed to fulfill the main goal of the flight mission: broadcasting on television to the whole world, how accurately and clearly Soviet ships are docked in space. The world community was surprised not only by the simultaneous flight of three “Unions”, but also by the spectacular television report on the space docking. TASS had to confine itself only to reporting that the ships had made a series of maneuvers to approach to each other.  
For the time remaining before landing the crews were engaged in carrying out the planned experiments and studies. In particular, the Soyuz-6 crew conducted a unique and, as it turned out, very dangerous (!) Experiment on the electric welding of metals on board a ship using the Vulkan installation. The experiment was carried out as follows. First, the astronauts prepared for operation a welding installation located in the household compartment of the spacecraft. Then they went into the descent vehicle and closed the hatch between the SA and the BO. After this, the BO was depressurized. From the remote control, the astronauts switched on the “Vulkan” installation, which operated automatically according to the program laid down in it, in accordance with which several types of electric welding on different metal samples were to be carried out in turn.  
When the installation was completed, the astronauts puffed out their household appliances, opened the hatch and ... gasped! The Volcano installation initially welded several metal samples, but then some kind of malfunction occurred - and it burned through the assembly table, “reached” the housing compartment and melted its internal, decorative coating! Flight Engineer V. Kubasov immediately appreciated the danger of the situation: the aluminum case of the compartment could be damaged and could simply crack at any moment from internal pressure, which would lead to an “explosive” depressurization. and the entire ship, and the spacesuit had no pages. Having seized the necessary things, instruments, and some welding samples, the crew quickly returned to the descent vehicle and sealed the access hatch behind them. Fortunately, everything worked out - the household compartment remained intact, but the astronauts did not dare to enter it until the landing.  
Another interesting, and most importantly, useful experiment was performed by the Soyuz-8 crew. For the first time, astronauts conducted an experimental communication session with the MCC and the Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov spacecraft measuring station via the Molniya-1 satellite. Subsequently, the use of satellite-relay satellites became commonplace.  
Experiments and studies were performed, and the ships with an interval of a day went to land. On October 16, the crew of Soyuz-6 first landed, and on October 17 and 18, the crews of Soyuz-7 and Soyuz-8. The “space squadron” returned to Earth. The triple flight was completed.


	54. Soyuz 9:a long flight

After the plan was approved in 1969, after the triple flight of the Soyuz 6, 7 and 8 (7K􏰀OK No14, No15 and No16) ships on the next four 7K􏰀OK ships, it was supposed to carry out tests in low Earth orbit of a new radio engineering docking system “Contact”, which was created for the lunar ships according to the program N1 – L3. The launch and docking of the first pair of 7K􏰀OK (No17 and No18) was planned to be carried out in August-September 1970, and the next  
ry (No. 19 and No. 20) - at the beginning of 1971, however, at the end of December 1969, an instruction was received from the Central Committee of the CPSU: to celebrate the 100th birthday of V.I. Lenin (April 22, 1970), perform a space flight on a single ship Soyuz continued  
with a life of 17–20 days. The need for such a long flight was explained by the fact that the United States not only landed on the moon twice, but also significantly surpassed the USSR in terms of the duration of manned flights.  
This happened in 1965. At first, in the thick of 1965, the Gemini􏰀5 crew (G. Cooper and C. Conrad) spent almost 8 days in space, breaking the record set by V. Bykovsky in June 1963 at Vostok 5 ”(4 days 23 hours). Then, in December 1965, Gemini􏰀7 (F. Borman and J. Lovell) made a two-week flight (13 days 18 hours). In response to this, in 1965-1966. a long flight “Voskhod 3” was being prepared in the USSR (up to 20 days). But due to the closure of the Voskhod program, the launch of this ship was canceled. For more than 4 years, Americans have been leaders in the duration of human space flight. This situation did not suit the leaders of the Soviet Union at all. That is why the idea arose of performing a record-breaking manned flight in duration. As often happened in Soviet times, the establishment of the next space record was decided to coincide with the state holiday – centennial anniversary of V. I. Lenin.  
After this decision was made, the passive ship 7K􏰀OK No17, which was already manufactured and planned for launch according to the test program of the Contact system, began to urgently convert for a long autonomous flight: the docking assembly was dismantled from the ship and the modified LSS, designed for the flight of a crew of two astronauts lasting up to 20 days. At the end of December 1969, three crews were formed:  
➊ A.Nikolaev and V.Sevastyanov; ➋ A.Filipchenko and G. Grechko;  
➌ V. Lazarev and V. Yazdovsky.

Launch 7K􏰀OK No17 was planned for the first half of April 1970, so the astronauts had to go through an intensive, accelerated flight preparation course. They trained for only 2 months: from January to March 1970. At the beginning of March, the crews passed the test comprehensive training on the simulator of the Soyuz spacecraft: on March 6 - A. Filipchenko and G. Grechko, on March 9 - A. Nikolayev and V. Sevastyanov, March 11 - V. Lazarev and V. Yazdovsky. On March 14, astronauts passed theoretical exams: all six received excellent marks.  
The training of the crews was completed, but on February 20, a decision was made to postpone the start of 7K􏰀OK No17 from April to the second half of May 1970. Therefore, after passing the exams, the crew members were granted one-month leave. On March 18, the astronauts went on vacation to the Air Force sanatorium in Chemi Tokwaj. Having returned from vacation at the end of April, the crews began the final stage of training at the CPC.  
On May 18, a meeting of the military-industrial complex was held, at which A. Nikolayev and V. Sevastyanov were approved as the main crew, and the crews of A. Filipchenko and V. Lazarev were appointed duplicates. The next day, all three crews were accompanied by experts and arrived at the space center, where for two weeks the final prelaunch work and cosmonaut training were carried out.

The launch of the Soyuz 9 ship (7K􏰀OK No17) with A.Nikolaev and V.Sevastyanov aboard took place on June 1, 1970 at 22:00:00 UHF, that is, at half a night local time . This was the first nightly launch of a manned ship in our country. After ascending into orbit, the cosmonauts began to carry out a long-term flight program: they carried out daily biomedical research, observations, and photographing the Earth’s mainland and water surface, its cloud cover. In order to prevent the adverse effects of weightlessness on the human body, cosmonauts performed a set of physical exercises two times a day with the help of spring expanders.

A feature of the flight of the Soyuz 9 crew was that the astronauts not only carried out scientific experiments, studies and observations, but also simply learned to live in a long space flight. And for this it was required to solve numerous domestic issues. For example, astronauts were the first to shave in orbit. It was also an experiment. It turned out that a safety razor is not suitable for this: hair and paste fly apart. But the astronauts were satisfied with the special electric shaver. The crew of Soyuz-9 regularly cleaned their “space dwelling”. At the same time, a vacuum cleaner was used for the first time in orbit.  
On June 8 (on the 7th day of the flight), during the next radio communication session with the MCC in Yevpatoria, Andriyan Nikolaev was very surprised and pleased when he heard the voices of his wife Valentina Tereshkova and daughter Alenka (on this day she was 6 years old). This was the astronaut’s first radio session with members of his family. In the future, such communication sessions became an integral part of the psychological support of crews during long flights at orbital stations.

On June 10 (the 9th day), the Soyuz 9 crew was given a rest day (the first “space weekend”). In order to take the cosmonauts' leisure time, again, for the first time, a chess match “Cosmo-Earth” was arranged. A. Nikolayev and V. Sevastyanov were in favor of “space”, and General N. Kamanin and cosmonaut V. Gorbatko fought for “Earth”. The batch lasted a total of about 6 hours, from the 141st to 144th turn, and was interrupted for “home analysis” at a time when the ship was out of range for the sake of the visibility of NPCs. It ended in a draw.

On June 17, on the 16th day of the flight, the Soyuz-9 crew set a new world record for the duration of space flight, having cut off the flight duration of the Dzhemini-7 crew by 10% (according to the FAI rules).  
On June 19 (the 18th day) at the 287th turn, having completely completed the flight program, the Soyuz-9 crew landed on Earth. The difficult and responsible flight was successfully completed.  
However, on Earth, astronauts set fire to a difficult test. Here is what V. Sevastyanov tells about this: “When we landed, it was very difficult for us. The search team met us quickly. Andriyan was pulled out on his hands, and I got out myself and sat on the edge of the hatch, but I can not get down. He barely endured, while they took me off. Andrian sits and wipes his face with earth, and tears run down his dusty cheeks. We could not get up. On a stretcher we were carried into a helicopter. They put Andrian on a bench, and me on the floor near a kerosene tank. We are flying. And suddenly the doctors rushed to Andriyan and fussed about something. I crawled on all fours, looked - and he was unconscious. Barely pumped out ... So we were put on a stretcher from a helicopter and carried to Karaganda. ”  
According to objective medical indicators, the astronauts were in the worst condition: the heart decreased by 12% in area, and by 20% in volume, the hip perimeter decreased by 7.5 cm, the lower leg perimeter by 3.5 cm. The cosmonauts experienced muscle pain , in the evening they had a high temperature and a pulse increased.  
The next day, June 20, the Soyuz􏰀9 crew was flown from Karaganda to the Chkalovsky airfield, and from there to the Zvezdniy Gorodok dispensary under the vigilant attention of the best doctors of the Air Force and CPK. Thus, starting from the crew of Soyuz-9, the government meeting of space heroes at Vnukovo Airport near Moscow was canceled.  
The period of acute readaptation at the cosmonauts lasted more than two days, for more than six days they could not get up and walk independently, but thanks to the doctors A. Nikolayev and V. Sevastyanov, they gradually restored their health.  
According to the results of the Soyuz-9 flight, a whole complex of copper preventive devices was developed (treadmill, bicycle ergometer, Penguin load suits, Chibis vacuum unit, and other means), which began to equip all orbital stations . The developed measures turned out to be effective: although the duration of the flight of crews subsequently increased regularly, the cosmonauts, upon returning to Earth, felt quite normal. A striking example of this is the record-breaking flight of the cosmonaut Valery Polyakov: without significant health consequences, he spent more than a year in space - 437 days.


	55. Project Apollo:President J.F. Kennedy and the Apollo Program

The launch in January 1958 of the first American satellite did not dispel the discontent of the Americans and did not restore the prestige of the United States as a technological leader in space exploration. The Soviet Union entered space powerfully, beautifully, unexpectedly and, most importantly, mysteriously. The wings of a mysterious Russian bird fluttered open over America, and the devil knows where it flies, what it has in its beak, in its claws? We write a lot about the exploit of our pioneers in astronautics, often not taking into account (and thereby lowering our merits) that they also did not sleep on the other side of the ocean for days, got heart attacks, fell down from overwork. Before overtaking us in the space race in the late 1960s, at the beginning of the decade, Americans had a full cup of confusion, despair, and an extreme test of self-confidence.

And what was perhaps the hardest of all - they did not feel the support of the state. Nowadays, few people remember when the word “Apollo” was first spoken - and this name for the next project after “Mercury” was proposed by the director of the Managed Space Flight Programs Office, Abe Silverstein in January 1960. In July, the idea of a triple Apollo for flying around the Earth and for a manned flyby of the Moon was made public. In October, Space Task Force (STG) project designers Max Faže and Cadwell Johnson already drafted the Apollo command module in advance.  
But President Eisenhower did not show the slightest interest in Apollo. In the first year of operation, NASA spent $ 23 million - received one. In December 1960 - the second attempt. Agency asks for $ 71 million - Eisenhower sends Congress a request for only 29 and a half!  
After November 21, when Redstone refused to fly in the presence of important people and “shamefully spat” CAC farm from its crown into the Canaveral spines, the clouds over NASA were gathering. After a transparent hint from the new administration (Kennedy defeated in the elections on November 8, 1960), NASA administrator Kate Glennan “flew” from his place, STG chief Bob Gilrut prepared to “fly away,” they said that they would “fly away” and von Braun’s “missile baron” himself. In anticipation of the approaching “battle”, under the icy rain of loud and undeserved criticism, everyone at NASA worked like Alaska's desperate prospector miners. They didn’t approach government telephones; nobody remembered about the Christmas holidays ...  
Gagarin’s flight on April 12, 1961, which deprived the presidential retinue of his speech (and criticism), gave NASA the opportunity to work normally and conduct the first manned flight of Mercury. And nobody in the White House was interested in whether Alan Shepard “flew” into space or only “jumped”: May 5, 1961 became a holiday for the United States, it was celebrated twice, four times cooler than the inauguration of the president himself. Gip􏰀gip􏰀ura! America has entered the space club! (What club is there with one member - the USSR!)  
Before they could remove the festive tables and sweep the streets of American cities, a young president, perked up, announced the lunar program. Kennedy's opponents shrugged: John's head went round from the first very dubious cosmic success. But for two months, they were “knocked out of the NASA leadership as if they were Japanese prisoners” at midnight meetings in Washington for guarantees against the lunar demarche. Agency bosses averted their eyes, moving their dumb lips. Yes, they wanted and could make a lunar rocket and a lunar ship, but without a haste. Is it possible to do this by 1967 ?! And what will it cost? According to initial estimates, it turned out $ 30-40 billion, more expensive than the most beloved American "toy" - His Majesty the US Navy with all its aircraft carriers, cruisers, submarines and other gunboats.  
So, on May 25, 1961, the 35th US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy proclaimed a new national goal:  
“... The time has come for great accomplishments, the time for the new great American enterprise, the time when our people must take a clear leadership in space achievements, and this is the key to our future on Earth ... Russians, thanks to their large rocket engines, they will win the competition for some time, but this should only spur the United States in their efforts. <...> We are at additional risk because the whole world is looking at us. But, as the feat of the astronaut Shepard showed, this risk increases our credibility in case of luck. I believe that our people can set themselves the task by the end of this decade, put a man on the moon and safely return him to Earth. Not a single space project at this time will make a greater impression on humanity and will not be more important for long-term space exploration, and not one will be so difficult and expensive ... ”  
Thus was born the Apollo project that we know today. It is entirely possible that the politicians who adopted the “lunar decision” did not know what they were doing. These people publicly made a “non-guaranteed” obligation - after all, no one knew at that time whether it was possible to step on the moon at all ...  
Kennedy's “lunar solution” can be safely called a strategic challenge: now America had a new “national idea” - impudent and grandiose. And Kennedy also gave America peace of mind - no need to jump up from the Pentagon’s call from the bed that the Soviets launched something there. Launch styles? Well, congratulations, Nikita Sergeevich, Leonid Ilyich. But the people of the United States know: it will be he who will have the most powerful space potential in the world, thanks to which he will accomplish something grandiose in the late 1960s.  
Will there be a moon landing or not - John Kennedy may not even have bothered. Let it be with von Braun, Debus, Miller, Gilruth, Kraft, Webb, Simans, Lowe and the rest in NASA head hurts! Two presidential terms will expire before the end of the decade, and before that any gap will be considered a “working moment”. The US backlog in rockets immediately began to be called “temporary and annoying”, critics were “pushed into the cracks”.  
The key moment of the Apollo project - the program for creating the superheavy carrier Saturn 5 - was carried out under the leadership of Werner von Braun. His talented and prolific team of designers during the Second World War created German combat missiles in Peenemuende, and now he worked in America, at the Marshall Center. It was these "Germans" who provided the launch of the first American satellite and the flights of Shepard and Grissom.  
On October 27, 1961, the first launch of the Saturn 1 launch vehicle, the first US carrier, which exceeded the Korolev’s seven by launch thrust, took place. Largely thanks to this launch, von Braun received a state order for the development of Saturn􏰀5, a super-rocket that allowed the expedition to be delivered to the moon in a single launch, and at the same time realized the goal of a real rocket’s life - the implementation of a manned interplanetary journey .  
Werner von Braun said the wonderful words the night before the Apollo 11 launch: “If the expedition were to bring a handful of dust and pebbles to Earth, we would undoubtedly be the biggest boobies in history of humanity. This is by no means our main task today or tomorrow. This start will help us find the keys to the future of mankind on Earth ... A person achieves greatness when, overcoming himself, he goes to a great goal, the same applies to the nation ... Only when the people respect themselves, other nations respect him. ”


	56. Project Apollo:path selection

At first, the expedition to the moon was seen as follows. A huge rocket starts from the Earth and brings to the flight path to the moon a much smaller rocket with a crew cabin. When approaching the moon, this second two-stage rocket unfolds “tail forward”, turns on the engines of the lower stage, extinguishes speed and falls on the widely spaced supports of the landing device. After all, the only way to land on the Moon is on a jet thrust. After astronauts explore the landing area and return to their command module, the upper stage of the rocket launches from the moon and lays back on course. A command module with astronauts brakes in the Earth’s atmosphere, releases parachutes and lands in the ocean.  
But for such a trip, a gigantic-sized rocket was needed - more than 100 meters high and weighing approximately 5000 tons. In principle, engineers imagined how to make it. Moreover, the F􏰀1 engine, suitable for the Nova rocket, with a thrust of 1.5 million pounds (680 tf) has been developed for three years, and just in April 1961, its chamber first developed full thrust. For the lunar expedition according to the “direct” variant, eight such engines had to be put on the first stage of the Nova.  
The direct "option was presented to the most real designers of the Robert Gilrut Space Task Force. But Werner von Braun and his Huntsman team had a counter-offer, with which the future head of the Marshall Center made a statement back in 1952 in the Collier’s magazine. Why, one wonders, to launch the entire lunar complex with one giant rocket, if it can be assembled in low Earth orbit from parts launched by smaller rockets? In the summer of 1961, when NASA was looking for an opportunity to complete Kennedy's assignment in an unimaginably short time, this idea seemed very attractive. After all, a smaller missile — say, with only two F􏰀1 in the first stage instead of eight — required more modest launch facilities and less time to develop and test, and it cost a lot less.  
However, it is not enough to deliver one way or another to the near-earth orbit of rockets — a space complex for landing on the moon and returning to Earth. Just imagine: on the moon, on an absolutely unprepared place, you need to land a rocket weighing not a dozen tons and a height of 20 meters, and to land impeccably accurately and softly - it will then fly up! Who will control the landing and how? Automation? It’s impossible, the risk of error is too great. Crew? But how can astronauts, lying in their chairs, see the surface of the moon? How to build their cabin? There were much more questions than answers.  
There was a third option, which promised the maximum savings in the mass delivered to the moon, and, therefore, a minimum mass when launched from the Earth. You need to land on the Moon in a small landing module, leaving the main ship in orbit around the Moon with a command module and a rocket stage for flying to Earth.  
This idea had many authors. The first in 1916 came to her Russian scientist Yuri Kondratyuk. The second, not knowing about the work of Kondratyuk, is a British researcher,H.E. Ross, in 1948. Third - Tom Dolan from Vought Astronautics in 1959, again not knowing about the predecessors. And almost at the same time - a group of NASA Langley Center engineers, which included John Hubolt.  
The idea of meeting and docking in orbit around the moon then sounded completely heretical. It is said that Max Faget, after listening to the Hubolt report in December 1960, shouted: “Your numbers are lying!” However, John Hubolt did not give up and continued to convince everyone who wanted to hear him. Months passed, and the idea took hold of the masses: now, James Chemberlin suggested using the Mercury ship with a miniature lunar module to fly to the moon ...  
Violating all the rules of subordination and business correspondence, Hubolt managed to “knock” on the heads of NASA. On instructions from Washington, in early 1962, the von Braun team calculated the docking option for the Moon, and the people of Gilruth in Houston calculated the assemblies for the Earth. It turned out that for the “lunar” version, only one Saturn-5 rocket would suffice, and for the “near-earth” two would be needed.  
On July 11, 1962, the decision of landing on the Moon by undocking and docking in orbit around her was officially announced. From that moment, two separate ships appeared in the Apollo complex: a command-and-service module for entering a lunar orbit and returning to the Earth and a lunar module for landing on and launching from the Moon. 


	57. Project Apollo:tests of the Saturn-Apollo complex

The mobilization of the country's resources for landing on the moon was comparable to the priority wartime programs, primarily the atomic project. $ 19.4 billion was allocated to Saturn and Apollo at the prices of those years, and together with the technical and starting complexes and test facilities, the program “pulled” $ 24 billion. In the most stressful period, in 1966–67, Apollo accounted for about 70% of NASA's budget. Almost half a million people, about 20 thousand firms, participated in the work.  
The Cape Canaveral area in Florida, where the US Air Force missile test site was already operating, was chosen as the starting point for lunar expeditions. The coast north of it and part of Merritt Island was occupied by the NASA Launch Operations Center, created in July 1962. (In November 1963, it was renamed the Kennedy Space Center.)  
In May 1963, on the Merritt Island, the foundation was laid for a giant assembly and test building - a 165-meter vertical assembly building. Two years later, it was already handed over for equipment installation. Five kilometers from it, on the ocean, in 1963-1966. Two launchers of Saturn-5 LV - LC-39A and 39B were built. Two more, LC-34 and LC-37B, were built for the Saturn-1 and Saturn-1B missiles.  
In developing such a grandiose rocket and space system, such as “Surnt5” - “Apollon”, the problem of reliability became central. And the program was characterized by an unprecedented scale of bench ground mining of both individual blocks and the entire complex as a whole. It took about 5 years to create a stand base: 3 years for design and 2 years for construction. Opponents considered this technique to be very unreasonable and costly, but it paid off. And one of the most important events of the Apollo program took place on April 16, 1965, when the first step of the Saturn 5 was first tested at the stand. Having such a strong rear, George Miller, who became in September 1963 The head of the NASA Manned Flying Department, proposed to abandon the gradual flight development of Saturn-5 (first the first step, then the second ...) and prepare the first launch with three ready steps at once and with the ship . No, I didn’t offer it - I demanded and implemented the principle “all at once!” Despite the resistance of the rocket developers from the Marshall Center. Miller had one “iron” argument: with the traditional flight test scheme, landing on the Moon until the end of the decade is unrealistic.  
In accordance with this new methodology as the development principle, for the Saturn 5 LV, instead of six, only three missiles were allocated, but in fact only two * were used. Before the first landing on the moon, it was planned to use up to 12 Saturn-1V rockets and up to 12 Saturn-5 launch vehicles. In reality, five of them and five others were used.  
As a result, time and costs were reduced. But the cost of manufacturing one instance of the Saturn-5 rocket reached $ 185 million (at the prices of that time), the main unit of the Apollon spacecraft - $ 55 million, the lunar spacecraft - $ 41 million, and launch support - $ 58 million. In total, each launch cost more than $ 300 million!  
The initial schedule of work, drawn up in 1961 and providing for the first landing on the moon in 1967, was not sustained, although the deadline declared by Kennedy - “until the end of the decade” - was met. Disruptions were caused mainly by technical difficulties. Most of all, the ground development program for F-1 engines, the modernization of the Apollo after the fire in January 1967, and the creation of the lunar module were the most delayed.  
As early as 1958, concrete conceptual solutions were formed that predetermined the steady US movement in this direction. The rest, as they say, was a matter of “engineering sweat” ...

Tests on the Apollo program consisted of several parallel "storylines." And the first of them were launches of Saturn􏰀1.  
In the first four flights, the “working” was only the first stage; the upper models carried ballast (water) with a total mass of 87 tons. Therefore, the flight on October 27, 1961 (it was designated SA􏰀1) was suborbital and lasted only 8 minutes.  
April 25, 1962 (launch SA􏰀2) the missile was deliberately detonated 2.5 minutes after launch. A giant cloud of ice crystals scattered in the upper atmosphere was observed for ~ 12 sec.  
In flight SA-3 (November 16, 1962), the first-stage squad brakes were tested, the SA-4 (March 28, 1963) deliberately turned off engine # 5, and the rocket completed seven years of flight.  
On January 29, 1964, the first Saturn-1 of the Block 2 series (SA-5) with the S-IV working stage took off from the 37B complex and launched into the orbit the test equipment block and the Jupiter missile head "Filled with sand.  
On May 28, 1964, Saturn 1 carried the Apollo model for the first time. At launch SA-6, the staffing of the emergency rescue system (SAS) farm of the Apollo command module was checked, and this time, inadvertently, the operation of the missile control system when one engine was turned off. At launch SA􏰀7 (September 18), the compatibility of the Apollo mockup with the carrier and the different mode of separation of the CAC farm were checked.  
In the last three launches (February 16, May 25, and July 30, 1965), Saturn-1 launched its “workload” —the Pegasus satellites to register micrometeorites — along with the Apollo spacecraft ". Meanwhile, on the Wallops Island in Virginia, the development of SAS was carried out when it was used at the start and in flight. Like Mercury, SAS looked like a truss tower mounted above a ship. In the event of an accident, the system had to separate the cockpit with astronauts and take it away from the Saturn.  
Two tests (November 7, 1963 and June 29, 1965) simulated an accident at the start. It was necessary to take the ship from the launch pad to a height of at least 1200 m. Both tests were successful.  
On August 28, 1963, the specially designed Little Joy-2 launch vehicle was tested, which was equipped with Recruit and Algol-1D solid-fuel rockets, depending on the launch tasks.  
At launch A001 on May 13, 1964, the Apollo spacecraft model was shot at an altitude of 7 km, immediately after crossing the sound barrier. One of the three main parachutes did not open on the layout, but the flight was considered successful. On December 8 (start-up A002), the operation of the CAC at the maximum speed head was checked. On May 19 (launch A003), it was planned to check the operation of the CAC at a high altitude, but the system worked ahead of schedule due to destruction of the carrier on the 25th secundo flight. Finally, on January 20, 1966. in flight A004, the rocket for the first time carried the “live” Apollo spacecraft — the CSM-002 command-and-service module, to simulate rescue from a randomly tumbling missile. CAC also worked fine here and took the ship to a safe distance for a soft landing.  
The first Saturn-1B (SA􏰀201 *) launched on February 26, 1966 with an unmanned ship CSM-009 weighing about 22 tons. The rocket worked perfectly, the second-stage engine turned off for the 604th second at a speed of 6537 m /from. Separating, the ship turned on the service module SPS engine for 184 seconds and took an additional 1234 m / s, and then a second time for 10 seconds. The ship entered the atmosphere at a speed of 8100 m / s and successfully splashed 39 minutes after launch, 320 km from Ascension Island. When the SPS engine was first turned on, it worked abnormally: at the 80th second, the pressure in the chamber dropped by 30%. The search for a fault forced the SA-202 to be delayed.  
Start SA-203 was intended to study the behavior of 9 tons of liquid hydrogen in tanks of the S-IVB stage; Through television cameras, specialists observed the behavior of the fuel and the process of its deposition due to the jet stream of hydrogen being etched. At the end of the 1st turn, all operations necessary for restarting the engine were checked. After 4 turns, the drain valves were closed, and the rocket collapsed under the pressure of evaporating hydrogen. The mass of the cargo launched into orbit on July 5, 1966, 25,500 kg, remained record-breaking until the first Saturn 5 flight.

On August 25, 1966, carrier SA􏰀202 launched the ship CSM􏰀011 onto a suborbital trajectory. The ship almost did not differ from the manned one and was first powered from fuel cells. The Apollo was in flight for 93 minutes, its SPS engine turned on four times - at 215, 88 and twice for 6 seconds. The maximum flight altitude was 1137 km. The command module entered the atmosphere at a speed of 8.7 km / s, made a double dive and successfully splashed in the Pacific Ocean off Wake Island.  
In February 1967, the only manned flight of the command-service module of the so-called first model, or “Block 1”, was planned. To launch the ship CSM-012, the SA-204 rocket was allocated. Back in December 1965, Virdg Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were assigned to the main crew of Apollo on 1.  
The unmanned test flight of the lunar module (LM) was already very late at this point. It was planned on the SA-206 rocket in May 1967.  
A pair launch of unmanned LM and manned CSM “Block 2” type was planned for August with Saturn-1B carriers SA-208 and SA-205. James McDivitt, David Scott, and Russell Schweikart were to pair with the lunar module and hold  
his comprehensive tests.  
In December 1966, an eci was appointed  
a page for the first manned Apollo launched by the SA􏰀urn􏰀5 rocket (SA􏰀503): Frank Borman, Michael Collins and William Anders. They had to test the LM in flight in an extended low Earth orbit. When this flight took place, no one knew: the first launch of Saturn 5 was planned for May 1967.  
The death of Grissom, White, and Chaffee in the fire of Apollo 1 on January 27, 1967 was a shock for all of America. I had to significantly modify the Apollo model ship  
“Block 2” to make it safer and more reliable. However, the widespread belief that the January catastrophe delayed the program for a year and a half is wrong. Even if Apollon 1 flied successfully, a long pause before the first launch of Western 5 and until the lunar module was ready was still inevitable.  
On November 9, 1967, the first launch of the three-stage Saturn-5 LV (machine number SA-501) with the CSM-017 unmanned vehicle and a light-weight weighing model (GVM) was launched from the LC-39A launch complex. lunar module. For some mysterious reasons, this launch was given the designation “Apollon-4” - although “Apollon-1” burned out at the start, and numbers 2 and 3 were not used at all.  
From the deafening roar of rocket engines (it was compared with the eruption in 1883 of the Krakatau volcano), the roof of the Columbia Broadcasting pavilion collapsed 5 km from the launch complex. The air shock wave during the operation of the first stage was recorded by the La Mon Doerti Geological Observatory in Palisades, New York State (1770 km from the launch site).  
All three stages worked normally. The S-IVB stage and the ship with a total mass of 126 tons entered the orbit 182x187 km in height. After a two-turn flight, the stage engine was launched again and raised its apogee to 18092 km after 5 minutes 25 seconds. CSM-017 detached and corrected using its own rocket engine. On the descending branch of the orbit, the engine was turned on again for 4 minutes 30 seconds - and the SM began to enter the atmosphere at a speed of 11.1 km / s, simulating the conditions of return from the lunar expedition. The flooding took place 960 km from the Hawaiian Islands 8 hours 37 minutes after the start.  
The unmanned lunar module LM􏰀1 started only a year after the fire, on January 22, 1968, on the carrier SA􏰀204 - the very one on top of which the tragedy occurred. The start-up received the designation Apollo 5. At the third turn, the operators tried, simulating the descent from the lunar orbit, to turn on the engine of the landing stage for 38 seconds. However, after working for only 4 seconds, he disconnected due to a software error. I had to switch to a backup flight plan. The landing stage engine was switched on twice more and the take-off stage twice, and emergency separation of the steps necessary for refusing to land on the moon was tested.

On April 4, 1968, the SA􏰀502 rocket launched with the unmanned ship CSM􏰀 020 and the lunar module’s mainframe. The machine showed both its “temper" and its amazing survivability. During the first stage, longitudinal vibrations exceeded the permissible level. At T + 5 min 18 sec, the thrust of the second stage rocket engine No2 fell by 2300 kgf. At T + 6 min 49 sec, it turned off, and after 1.3 sec, the adjacent adjacent engine No. 3 turned off. “Sáturn” might have lost stability and perish ... and he flew!  
The control system extended the operation of the three remaining engines for 58 seconds, and the 3rd stage engine for 29 seconds and “pulled” Apollon-6 into orbit. However, the same malfunction of the ignition system, due to which the second-stage engines failed, was also present at the third. Attempts to turn it on at the 3rd turn and raise the apogee to 516700 km were unsuccessful. The ship’s engine was turned on for 7 min 21 sec, providing a lift to 22259 km, from where the Apollon 6 returned to Earth at a speed of 9.99 km / s instead of 11.1 km / s according to plan.  
The Apollo-6 onboard systems worked normally. And although part of the mission’s tasks was not completed, on April 27, James Webb ordered the cancellation of the Saturn􏰀5, the third unmanned launch, planned at that time, and the preparation of the SA-503 rocket for a manned flight.  
The launch of the manned Apollo 7 on Saturn 1B in October 1968 was the last before the storm of the moon. Launch complexes 34 and 37B at Cape Canaveral were mothballed, the baton was transferred to Saturn 5.  
The launch schedule for the Apollon program was constantly changing depending on the outcome of completed flights, as well as on external circumstances. NASA Admin James Webb had access to both top-secret CIA intelligence and satellite imagery on Soviet space objects. He knew about the existence of the Н􏰀1 rocket and about when it was taken to the launch line. Obviously, it was precisely these data in 1968 that made Webb rush, canceling launch after launch. In order to plan flights and train crews under these conditions, it was necessary to build on tasks rather than numbers of missiles or ships.  
As the head of the Houston Field Management Office, Ouen Maynard made a test plan until the first moon landing, including stages with letters A, B, C, and so on.  
Missions A »  
aimed at pilotless testing of the CSM command and service module. They began with the launch of SA􏰀 201 in 1966 and ended with Apollo 6 in April 1968.  
Missions B ”were unmanned tests of the lunar module LM. Only one of them took place - Apollo 5 at SA-204. The unmanned flight LM􏰀2 on SA􏰀206 was considered unnecessary.  
“Mission C” consisted of testing the CSM in a manned flight in near-Earth orbit. This designation had the failed flight of Apollo 1, and it also passed to Apollo 7.  
Mission D's goal was to test LM in near-Earth orbit. In 1966, it was planned to carry out mission D according to a two-start scheme on Saturn 1B, but after the first success of Saturn 5 it was transferred to a new medium.  
“Mission E” consisted of bringing the CSM + LM ligament to an elongated orbit with an apogee of about 6400 km - thereby simulating the start of the entire complex from near-Earth orbit to the Moon and the return at high speed.  
Mission F ”was a general rehearsal of the lunar expedition. It was planned to put the CSM + LM bunch into a lunar orbit, perform separate flight of two modules, build a pre-launch LM orbit - in a word, do everything except descent and landing.  
The designation “Mission G” belonged to the first lunar expedition. The time spent on the lunar surface was limited to 24–36 hours; one astronaut planned for the moon was planned.  
Later, two more letters appeared in Maynard's classification. Mission H was called flights with astronauts staying on the moon for two days and two exits to its surface. Finally, letter J denoted a three-day visit to the moon, when astronauts could make three long exits, move along the surface on lunar rover vehicles and explore the geology of specially selected regions of the moon.

In March 1967, Dick Slayton formed the main and duplicate crews for the first three Apollo flights.  
Mission C:  
➊ W. Shirra, D. Eisel, W. Cunningham;  
➋ T. Stafford, J. Young, Yu.Sernan. Mission D:  
➊ J.MacDivitt, D. Scott, R. Schweikart; ➋ C. Conrad, R. Gordon, C. Williams  
Mission E:  
➊ F. Borman, M. Collins, W. Anders;  
➋ N. Armstrong, J. Lovell, E. Aldrin. Two crews for mission C announced  
May 9, and four more - only on November 20, after the successful flight of the first S􏰀turn􏰀5. Therefore, Clifton Williams was not on the list - he crashed on October 5, and Alan Bean replaced him in the crew. In these compositions, astronauts trained until the summer of 1968, when two events almost simultaneously occurred.  
Michael Collins needed surgery: he had a “bone spur” between the two vertebrae, and on July 21 he went to the hospital. For rehabilitation,it was from 3 to 6 months. Therefore, on August 8, James Lovell was transferred to his place. In the backup crew, Edwin Aldrin became the pilot of the command module, and the pilot of the lunar module was replaced by Fred Hayes.  
And in early August, Houston’s Apollo ship department manager George Low proposed abandoning Mission E and instead launching the Apollo without an lunar module into orbit around the moon. The fact was that the preparation of the lunar module LM􏰀3 for mission D was far behind schedule, and instead of October 1968, it could not be launched until January 1969. And this meant that all other flights were delayed including the first lunar expedition. For the flight that Lowe proposed, the lunar module was not needed, and it could be carried out without disrupting the schedule.  
The head of the Houston center Robert Gilrut accepted the idea with a bang, Werner von Braun, and the head of the Apollon project, General Sam Phillips, too. At first, NASA chief James Webb did not agree to anything: with great difficulty he was persuaded to allow the elaboration of Lowe's idea, keeping it a secret. Nevertheless, on August 19, it was announced that the crews of Bormann and McDivitt would change places: the first would fly to Apollo􏰀8, the second to Apollo􏰀9.  
And then events unfolded with kaleidoscopic speed. On the night of September 15, 1968, the unmanned ship L-1 under the name “Probe-5” was launched into the moon in the USSR. On September 15, James Webb resigned several months earlier than expected. On September 21, Zond􏰀5 successfully splashed into the Indian Ocean, and on September 23, NASA made a cautious but sensational statement: the Apollon􏰀8 spacecraft could be launched into orbit already on the first manned flight on Sangturn􏰀5 around the moon.  
The Apollo 7 flight in October gave the Americans confidence in their strengths, and the launch of George Beregovoy on October 26 and the launch of Probe 6 on November 10 again made us fear the loss of priority. On November 12th, when Probe 6 was still flying toward its target, NASA announced the final decision: on December 21, Apollo 8 will be launched towards the Moon. By an irony of fate, the Zond 6 launch vehicle crashed after landing a few days later ...


	58. Apollo 1:a fire on the pad

On January 27, 1967, during the ground tests of the Apollo-1 spacecraft, its crew died in a fire - Virgil Grissom, Edward  
White and Roger Chaffee.  
... Almost 6 years have passed since the call:John F. Kennedy's "Kick to the End of the Decade." Work was in full swing. But the level of technology created for lunar missions caused a lot of disturbing questions.  
North American created the spacecraft for the first time. The “assault” based on the prototypes of the command module “Block 1” for the first near-Earth flights of Apollo was hellish. The cabin project was constantly “floating”: in 1966 alone, about 5300 changes were made in the design and equipment, of which 758 have not yet been implemented. The consequences of the changes were hardly traced according to the drawings, and the majority were not taken into account either by the standard documentation (it has not changed since August 1966) or by special instructions. Unprotected wire harnesses snaked across the cab floor. Heat carrier oozed from the thermal control system - its elements were disassembled and assembled many times due to malfunctions in the regulators and pipelines. Ethylene glycol vapors were flammable ...  
By the day of testing, the total volume of instructions was 213 pages. There were no measures and means to rescue astronauts in the event of a fire in the cockpit - they did not have time to develop them.  
Virgil Grissom knew how “raw” his ship was. For a year now, he had not crawled out of North American workshops in Downey, California. In the same way, he “brought to mind” “Gemini”, but “Apollo” was so complicated that the developers simply dismissed the advice of the astronaut: “Not to you.” Grissom skillfully restrained his irritation: he understood that the Apollo needed to ascend into space, and as soon as possible.

Air Force Colonel Virgil (Gus) Grissom, a Korean war veteran, had a reputation as a leader. By 1967, he had gained experience in a ballistic flight on Mercury (1961), successfully tested the first manned Gemini (1965), and now, at 40, he commanded the first Apollo. The trials of the new ship are the highest reward for the astronaut, but Grissom’s ambitions were not limited to this. He “laid eyes” on the first lunar landing. Dick Slayton, his friend and boss, believed that Grissom, like no other, deserves this honor.  
Air Force Lt. Col. Edward (Ed) White, 36, stood out among the astronauts in terms of growth and physical fitness. In 1965, he was the first of the Americans to go into outer space and since then, with pleasure, wore the halo of a national hero.  
Navy lieutenant commander Roger Chaffee, 31, an astronaut of the third set, first gathered in space, but was not accidental in Grisom’s crew - he was desperately and incurably "sick with the Moon" ...  
The ship with serial number 012 was already on the launch complex LC-34, in the head of the rocket SA-204. On January 27, at about one in the afternoon, the Apollo􏰀1 crew got into the ship to work out the countdown and the first three hours of the summer. Astronauts Stafford, Young, and Crannan on the other side of the country provided technical support in the same command module at the North American plant in California. In the “Saturn bunker” (launch control center), 500 meters from the launch, a young astronaut Stuart Rus sat at the kapkom console, next to him was Dick Slayton.  
By evening, when dusk lay on the Cape swamps, spotlights turned on, bathing the Saturn in white light. At 18:20 local time, at around 10 minutes, due to communication problems, the account was temporarily stopped. At 6:31:05 p.m., when Slayton looked through the test schedule, he heard a voice from Apollo 1. Just one word, similar to “Fire” ... And after another two seconds: “We have a fire in the cabin!”  
Slayton recognized Chaffee’s voice, whose seat was in the right armchair, opposite the radio remote control. He glanced at the television monitor, broadcasting the crew’s image through the porthole of the exit hatch. Flames danced on the glass ...  
18:31:12 - Chaffee’s desperate, completely unrecognizable voice: “We have a strong fire ... We are burning! Get us out! ”And literally after 2-3 seconds, Slayton and the operators, horrified in horror, heard the last sound from“ Apollon􏰀1 ”- it was a groan ...  
Rescuers rushed to the hatch of the ship and recoiled back: “It is too hot ...” From the smoke in the “white room” nothing was visible, gas masks did not help. During the opening of the cockpit, two of the 27 members of the launch team received severe carbon monoxide poisoning ...  
Only five minutes later the hatch was opened, and the main one, Don Babbitt, got in touch: “I’d better not describe what I see.”  
Slayton reported an emergency in Houston and, along with Rousse, rushed to the launch site. From far away, the pungent smell of burnt insulation and plast mass was felt. Climbing to mark A􏰀8, they saw the blackened cockpit “Apollo􏰀1”, from which a hatch hung - it was White's hand in a white spacesuit ... Having opened the hatch, rescuers tried to pull him out of the cab, but could not: ska fandr melted into a nylon network ...  
Peering through the hatch, Slayton saw Chaffee fastened to his chair; the other two were empty, the charred documentation lay on White's chair. Dick looked down, under the edge of the hatch, and saw two bodies in spacesuits with clean glasses of helmets and noticeably scorched layers on their legs. It was almost impossible to say who is Grissom and who is White.  
At the same time, Stafford, Young, and Cernan on the other side of the country in the same cabin also did not go smoothly: a leak from the refrigerant line, a circuit in the power supply, and there was even a moment when the hatch fell (!) on Cernan’s leg ... When Stafford decided to stop training and got out of the ship, there was a call from Florida ...

What went wrong that day, no one can say for sure, but the conditions for the fire were ideal. According to the project, at the start, the Apollo’s cockpit was filled with pure oxygen at a pressure of 1.14 kg / cm2, which in flight was supposed to be vented to 0.35 ± 0.1 kg / cm2. Excess pressure excluded the ingress of air into the cabin. Even at a pressure of 0.35, pure oxygen easily maintains fire; at 1.14, the danger grows at an alarming rate. However, no one thought about it ...  
The investigation restored the following picture of the tragedy:  
18:30:55 - a short-term surge in the CM power supply was recorded.  
18:31:01 - a sharp short-term voltage drop in the circuit of the temperature control system, which is typical for the occurrence of a spark, presumably in the cable next to the lithium hydroxide block in the lower left compartment of the equipment (Grissom side).  
18: 31: 04.7 - the first short message: “Fire”. After a second, the inertial system of the spacecraft detects vibrations — Grissom and White are released from safety belts.  
18:31:05 - the vapors of the refrigerant leaked from a nearby pipe are ignited (an aqueous solution of ethylene glycol), the nylon net under the seats lights up (stretched to catch falling instruments and equipment); the fire spreads rapidly, the temperature rises in the cabin.  
18:31:09 - message “Fire in the cabin!” The inertial system captures energetic vibrations. On the monitor screen, Slayton sees White's hands - the senior pilot raised them above his head and tries to unscrew the locks of the inner hatch.  
18:31:11 - an increase in pressure in the cockpit and even more intense movements of astronauts were recorded; White's shoulder is visible on the monitor.  
18:31:12 - a sharp increase in temperature and pressure, ignition has already developed into a volumetric fire. On the monitor for a split second, the helmets of White and Grissom are visible. Chaffee enhances the lighting of the cab and turns on the internal power supply. A scream is heard - then they did not immediately understand that it was Chuffy's voice: “We have a strong fire ... We are burning!”  
The inner hatch is opened with a rotary key, worn on the axis of the ratchet, unlocking the locks in the frame of the hatch. The axis is located above the left shoulder of the astronaut in the central chair (this is White). He must put the key on the axis and turn it 200 ° to unlock 6 locks; astronaut from the left armchair (Grissom) - accept and lower the cover. The regular opening time of the hatch ranged from 30 to 60 seconds, but in fact White with the help of Grissom and Chaffee opened it in 90 seconds. But because of the increase in pressure in the cabin, it was impossible to open the hatch by any force ...  
18:31:17 - the internal gas pressure reaches 2.03 kg / cm2, the first signs of fire are seen from the outside, an explosion sound is heard on the service tower.  
18:31:19 - the pressure rising to 2.5 kg / cm2 breaks the bottom of the capsule. The flame goes outside and covers the skin of the ship, which does not allow the starting crew to provide immediate assistance to the crew.  
18: 31: 21.8 - the last voice is heard.  
18: 31: 22.4 - reception of telemetry from “Apollo􏰀1” is stopped.  
18:31:25 - the pressure drops to normal, the fire is localized, but the cabin volume is filled with carbon monoxide and dense smoke.  
18:31:30 - the concentration of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of the cabin becomes lethal. Hoses are burnt through which oxygen entered the spacesuits of the astronauts and hot toxic gas bursts into them. The Apollo crew was not killed by the flame - it was poisonous smoke that caused loss of consciousness and death.  
... After the fire was discovered, the crew did everything right: Grissom, throwing away the head restraint of the middle chair, deployed in the cramped volume of the cockpit, stood on the floor at the hatch and helped White fight the rotary mechanism. Chaffee did not change his position so as not to interfere with his comrades who occupied all their free places at the hatch. Gus, who almost drowned in 1961 on the Mercury because of the hatch that opened prematurely, died from the hatch that did not open at all ...  
Despite the tragedy, the Apollo “avalanche” had already fallen from its inconceivable height and nothing could stop it. Astronauts had to reach the moon - not this crew, so the next.


	59. Project Apollo: the design of the ship

The flight of Apollo to the moon was planned as follows. The command and service module CSM1, sometimes also called the main unit of the ship, and the lunar module LM2 are launched on the Saturn-5 LV. The third stage of the carrier, together with the Apollo spacecraft, enters a low near-Earth orbit and, due to the repeated switching on of its engine, switches to the flight path to the Moon.  
At the start, the sequence of arrangement of the ship compartments is predetermined by the selected emergency rescue scheme. Above the ship on the farm is the propulsion system (DU) of the emergency rescue system (CAC). Next is the command and service module, and in the adapter between it and the third stage is the lunar module. The total height of this structure is 25 m.  
After reaching the trajectory of the flight to the Moon, the main unit is separated from the LV, rotated 180 °, and having an active docking unit, joins the lunar module and leads it out of the adapter. After that, Apollo leaves the third stage and flies on its own, spending it if necessary on some corrections.  
By braking with the help of the marching engine of the service module, the complex is launched into the initial near-moon orbit, which is 111 km above the population and 315 km above the settlement, and then it is transferred to a circular orbit about 100x120 km high. On it, the lunar module with two astronauts is separated from the main unit. The third astronaut remains in the command module in lunar orbit.  
The lunar ship enters an elliptical orbit with a minimum altitude of about 15 km, and in the vicinity of the pericenter performs disembarkation and deceleration using jet propulsion. From a height of about 900 m, astronauts visually select a landing site and perform a lunar landing.  
At the end of the program of staying on the lunar surface, astronauts start in the take-off stage of the lunar module, enter an orbit close to the orbit of the main unit, come together and join it. Soil samples and research materials are transferred to the command module, after which the take-off stage is separated, and the main unit is transferred to the flight path to the Earth. On approaching, the service module is detached, and the command module enters the atmosphere, performs aerodynamic descent with double immersion and, using the parachute system, is brought into the waters of the World Ocean.


	60. Project Apollo:the Command and Service Module

North American Aviation received an order for the development of the Apollo ship on November 28, 1961, and then this name was referred only to the CSM command and service module. After it was decided in June 1962 to make a separate lunar module for landing on the moon, the task of CSM was to deliver three astronauts to near-moon orbit and return them to Earth.  
Due to the fact that the lunar module appeared at a rather late stage of development, CSM was produced in two versions. The so-called “Block 1” did not have the means to meet and connections with the lunar module, it could only perform an autonomous flight, and the advanced “Block 2” was intended for use in the lunar expedition.  
The CSM included the command module (crew compartment) SM and the service module (engine compartment) SM3.  
CM has the shape of a cone with a spherical bottom and rounded corners. The diameter of the CM is 3.91 m, the height is 3.48 m. The mass of CM is 5.56–5.84 t.  
The CM includes the upper compartment, crew cabin and lower compartment. In the upper compartment there are two rocket launchers of the launch control system, a parachute system, and equipment of the splashdown system. In the lower compartment there are 10 more engines, tanks with fuel (about 120 kg), balloons with supercharged gas, a tank with water, and electrical communications with the service module.  
The cabin contains a control panel for the ship and on-board systems, three astronaut seats, life support system equipment (LSS), and scientific equipment containers. The compartment housing has a side entrance and exit hatch. After the Apollo 1 fire, the design of this hatch was changed - it was made to quickly open outward. For the same reason, it was decided before the start to have an atmosphere of 60% oxygen and 40% nitrogen in the cockpit. In flight, this mixture was replaced by a composition of 98% oxygen and 2% nitrogen at a pressure of 0.34–0.38 atm.  
CM has five observation windows, one of which has a sight for manual mooring when docking. In the upper part of the compartment, there is a manhole ending with an active docking unit (“pin” type) for docking with the lunar ship. After docking, the unit is dismantled.  
In normal mode, the module is brought in, but in an emergency it is able to land on land with acceptable crew loads.  
The SM service compartment contains support systems and a propulsion system for maneuvering a ship in flight. Its mass, together with fuel, is 23.18–24.52 tons, length along the nozzle of the main engine is 7.49 m, diameter 3.91 m. The body of the compartment is of a layered structure (aluminum honeycomb between two sheets of aluminum), supported by two transverse and six longitudinal power elements. Radiator tubes of the temperature control system (STR) are mounted on the walls of the casing, through which an aqueous glycol solution circulates. The bottom is covered by a heat shield protecting the SM from heating when the main engine is running.  
Inside, SM is divided by partitions into six longitudinal sections, in which fuel tanks and units of engine systems are located, an energy installation based on three batteries of oxygen-hydrogen fuel cells (FCs) with their own cryogenic tanks, as well as communication equipment.  
The main engine SPS4 for issuing large speed pulses in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the spacecraft has a thrust of 9300 kgf. It can turn on up to 36 times with a total duration of up to 750 sec. The engine is mounted in a gimbal for pitch and heading control. 16 small thrust rocket engines (45.4 kgf each), combined into four blocks, serve to stabilize and orient the ship and perform small coordinate displacements of the center of mass.  
All Apollo engines run on the long-term self-igniting fuel Aerosin-50 and nitrogen tetraoxyde. The fuel supply system from the tanks is expansion, the tanks are pressurized with helium. The cooling of the combustion chambers is ablative.  
After the Apollon-13 accident, the service compartment was modernized: an additional oxygen tank and an emergency silver-zinc battery with a capacity of 400 Ah were installed in it. In the event of a TE failure, it provided power to the main unit systems for 3 days.  
The CSM spacecraft was designed with astronauts actively involved in flight control. The CSM autonomous control and navigation system included an on-board computer with an input panel, an inertial measuring unit with a gyro-stabilized platform, a scanning telescope and a sextant for exhibiting a gyro platform


	61. Project Apollo:the lunar module

The lunar module LM is used to deliver two astronauts from a lunar orbit to the lunar surface, to ensure their stay on it and to return to a lunar orbit. The lunar module was created by Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp under a contract of November 7, 1962.  
A module weighing 13.94–16.45 t has two stages equipped with autonomous propulsion systems: landing and take-off. The first is used to decrease from a lunar orbit and soft landing on the lunar surface, the second, equipped with a pressurized crew cabin, delivers astronauts from the lunar surface to a lunar orbit, in which the main unit of the Apollo spacecraft revolves.  
The landing step (PS) with a height of 3.23 m and a diameter of 4.3 m is made in the form of a cruciform aluminum alloy frame. In the central compartment, an LMDE1 LPRE mounted in a cardan suspension is capable of throttling over a wide thrust range (max. 4.48 tf). In four compartments around the central one, tanks with fuel, breathing oxygen, helium for boosting, electronic equipment, a navigation and control subsystem, a landing radiator, and batteries were installed. The entire structure of the step is closed externally by thermal and anti-screen vacuum insulation (multilayer mylar with gold dusting).  
The impact energy during LM landing on the lunar surface is extinguished by the collapsing honeycomb cartridges installed in the telescopic racks of the four-legged chassis, as well as due to the deformation of cellular inserts in the centers of the landing heels. Each fifth is equipped with a probe signaling a page on contact with the lunar surface. Before the LM is separated from the CSM, the chassis is folded; after separation, the squib cuts the checks of each “leg”, and under the action of the springs, the chassis is released and locked.  
When astronauts return, the landing stage remains on the moon: it serves as a launching pad for the take-off stage. The separation of the steps is carried out by blowing up four pyro-bolts.  
The take-off stage (AF) with a height of 3.76 m and a diameter of 4.3 m has three main compartments - the crew cabin, central and rear, attachment points for the rocket engine and antenna unit, and a heat / micrometeor screen.  
The crew cabin is of a cylindrical shape with a diameter of 2.35 m, a length of 1.07 m (volume 4.6 m3), and a semi-monocoque construction made of aluminum alloys. Two workstations of astronauts are equipped with control panels and dashboards, a body fixation system, two front view windows, an upper porthole for observing the docking process and a telescope in the center. In the front wall of the compartment there is a square exit hatch (0.81x0.81 m) that opens inward.  
The crew compartment passes into the central compartment (the total volume of the pressurized cabin is 6.7 m3, the pressure in it is 0.337 kg / cm2), in the middle of which under the cylindrical casing an LMAE2 take-off rocket engine with a thrust of 1460 kgf is installed. The orientation and stabilization of the stage and the LM as a whole are provided by four blocks of 4 LRE thrust of 45.4 kgf.  
A tunnel with a diameter of 0.81 m passes through the central compartment of the take-off stage and is used to transfer the crew from CM to LM. The upper hatch of the step tunnel opens into the LM.  
The LM electrical system includes four silver-zinc batteries with a capacity of 400 Ah each installed at the landing stage, and two 310 Ah at the take-off stage. When the lunar module is docked with CSM, the power sources of the latter can provide all LM consumers.  
The LSS consists of a unit for purifying and regenerating the atmosphere, regulating pressure, water circulation STR, valves for recharging oxygen and water with an autonomous knapsack astronauts life support system.  
The navigation and control system includes a digital computer with an input panel, an inertial measuring unit, a periscope telescope, a landing radar and a meeting radar with CSM.  
On board the lunar ship, two transceivers operating in the S-band and two VHF transceivers are installed. The system provides voice communication, data transmission and reception for determining the trajectory, transmission of 270 telemetric measurements, and television transmission to the Earth. There is a returnable 4-channel tape recorder with a time stamp and tape reserve for 10 hours.  
To carry out lunar expeditions of the second stage (type J), the lunar module was modified. The life of the liquid fuel oil was increased to three days due to additional reserves of oxygen and water, and an additional chemical battery was installed. The rover was located in the rearranged cargo compartment No1.


	62. Apollo 7:test flight

On October 11, 1968, the Apollo 7 ship was launched from Cape Kennedy with the Saturn 1B rocket. On board were Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham.  
The main goal of the first manned Apollo flight was the comprehensive testing of CSM and command-and-measurement complex systems. “Apollo-7” consisted of a command module weighing 5742 kg and a reserve propellant of 8950 kg and 3700 kg in the LES. The service module weighing about 3,700 kg accounted for much of this. 10 minutes 27 seconds after launch, the 2nd stage of the S􏰀IVB with the ship entered the orbit with an inclination of 31.61 °  
and a height of 228x282 km.  
Using the engines of the spacecraft, the astronauts made several rotations of the “step-rabel” ligament with a total length of about 30 m. After separation, they imitated the rearrangement of the compartments, approaching the S-IVB level. 3 hours 20 minutes after the launch, CSM went into a slightly lower orbit to conduct the next day approach with a rocket. It mimicked the approach of CSM to the lunar module.

At the very beginning of the flight, Shirra felt a severe cold, and on October 12, Cunningham and Aisel fell ill. It turned out that a cold in weightlessness is a real disaster: aspirin did not help, it did not work to clean my nose and ears. Nevertheless, on October 12, the crew held a planned meeting with S-IVB. It took two starts of the SPS mid-flight engine, so that the Apollo 7 was 14 km below the stage and behind it. Then Shirra made an “interception” and at 29.56 minutes flight time (hereinafter referred to as T + 029: 56) he approached the target by 20 m. After a 25-minute hover, the step was circled and its photographing and then the Apollo began to retreat.  
On October 13, astronauts tested the spacecraft systems and observed the S-IVB using a sextant from a distance of 300 and 600 km. In the following days, the crew saw a step at a distance of up to 1850 km. A radar of the lunar module installed on the White Sands base accompanied the ship in flight.  
On October 14, the first 7-minute television report from the spacecraft took place in the American program. It was planned as early as the 12th, but that day Shirra refused to conduct it for a short time. Relations between Apollon 7 and the MCC were spoiled and worsened every day.  
On the first day, the AC-1 bus bus suddenly turned off, from which the devices were supplied with alternating current. Eisel quickly turned it on and prevented the DC-DC converter from failing.  
Fearing that the bus would turn off again (which meant, inter alia, the inability to control the thrust vector of the marching rocket engine), on October 14, the MCC decided to prematurely reduce the perigee of the orbit so that the braking pulse could be performed using the LRE orientation system. At T + 075: 48, by switching on the cruise rocket engine for 9 seconds, the ship went into orbit with an altitude of 166x296 km.  
On October 15, the crew photographed the clouds and the land surface. Window contamination interfered with observations.

On October 16, the 4th inclusion of the marching rocket engine for 0.48 seconds took place - a test of the minimum duration of operation.  
In daily television sessions, astronauts demonstrated weightless movement, cooking, and control of a ship. Some shows turned into a frivolous clowning, and the MCC required astronauts to take them more seriously.  
On October 18, Shirra switched on the 67 second SPS engine to shift orbits and for manual vector testing. For the first 36 seconds, the thrust vector was automatically controlled by the navigation system, then Chirra manually adjusted the thrust vector. He also had to turn off the engine manually, but he was late because the sun prevented him from observing the speed increment indicator. The apogee of the orbit increased to 452 km. On October 21, by turning on the LRE for 7 seconds, the perigee latitude necessary for landing was finally set.  
The flight was ending. The astronauts still had their airways blocked, and they were afraid that with a sharp increase in pressure during their return to Earth, acute ear pain could occur and even eardrums could burst. MCC allowed to put on a spacesuit without helmets before boarding.  
At T + 259: 39, the marching rocket engine was turned on for 12 seconds to leave orbit. After 4 min, pyro bolts triggered - CM separated from SM. The command module entered the atmosphere at an altitude of 120 km, the main parachutes opened at an altitude of 3 km.  
The flooding occurred 12 km from the aircraft carrier Essex; the module “lay down” on the wave bottom up. Astronauts filled three inflatable balloons with gas, which were specially designed for this case, and after 13 minutes the CM turned upside down. 25 minutes after landing, the astronauts were taken aboard a helicopter and delivered to an aircraft carrier. The Apollo 7 flight proved that the CSM airborne systems, and primarily the non-duplicated SPS engine, are suitable  
to travel to the moon.


	63. Apollo 8: People go to the moon

On December 21, 1968, the American spacecraft Apollo 8 for the first time in the history of mankind left Earth to the Moon.  
... 11 minutes 35 seconds after the launch, Apollo􏰀8 * was in orbit at an altitude of 185 km. Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders made sure that everything was okay on board, and at the estimated time, Michael Collins said in a hint:  
“You are allowed to start to the moon”

At T + 002: 50: 38, the engine of the S-IVB stage was re-switched on, and after 318 seconds, gaining 10,822 m / s, the stage and the ship reached a predetermined trajectory.  
At T + 003: 20: 59, the astronauts separated the ship from S􏰀IVB and with the help of thrust engines took it 15–20 m away. For 13 minutes Bormann performed a group flight with a step, simulating a “rearrangement of compartments” - CSM turn and extracting the lunar module, - and then gave a speed impulse of 0.33 m / s to divert the ship. However, the step again approached the ship and followed it at a distance of 150–300 m. I had to do a second withdrawal maneuver, this time with a speed increment of 2.3 m / s. After that, the stage lagged **. The second pulse, however, “spoiled” an almost perfect trajectory, and at T + 11: 00 I had to make a correction of 6.2 m / s.

On the first day of the flight, all three astronauts felt nauseous - it turned out that it was easier to get a “space sickness” in the spacious Apollo cockpit than in the cramped Gemini. Frank Borman could not fall asleep until he took a seconal, for which the next morning he paid off with a headache, vomiting and diarrhea. It was bad for him ... yes,and the rest is sad.  
  
On the Earth – Moon route, the ship was oriented most of the time in such a way that its longitudinal axis made an angle of 90 ± 20 ° with the direction to the Sun, and CSM rotated relative to the longitudinal axis at a speed of 0.1 ° / s to maintain the temperature mode. Houston wits called this “barbecue” mode, the word has taken root and is still used.  
31 and 55 hours after the start, when the CSM was at a distance of 255,000 km and 330,000 km from the Earth, the astronauts carried out two television sessions through a pointed antenna.  
At T + 055: 38, the ship crossed the surface of equal gravity between the Earth and the Moon, having the lowest velocity of 994 m / s. December 24th, when  
they were already walking in the shade above the moon, and a view appeared on that line where there are no stars and darkness reigns. And only three minutes before the engine was turned on for braking, the Apollo stepped out of the shadows, and the astronauts saw the lunar landscape right underneath!  
... "Apollo" was beyond the Moon, the Earth could neither help nor intervene. Jerry Carr gave the decision to go into orbit. “See you on the other side,” Lovell said in front of the very loss of communication at T + 068: 58: 04.  
At T + 069: 08: 20 at an altitude of 140 km, the astronauts switched on the marching engine ... Bormann's pulse rose to 130. If the engine runs for less than 80 seconds, the ship will fly around the moon and go to Earth. If from 80 to 110 seconds, the Apollo will not have enough speed to leave the Moon, he will return and fall on it. If 110 seconds or more, Apollo 8 will be in an orbit around the moon. Finally, if the SPS processes at least a few seconds, the ship will fall to the moon. Anders counted seconds, Bormann held his finger on the button.  
So vanished behind the moon the Apollo 8 crew: William Anders, James Lovell, Frank Borman,and, when “Zero!” was heard, Borman pressed the button. For 246.9 seconds, SPS reduced the speed of the ship from 2558 to 1664 m / s. Apollon-8 entered orbit with a 12 ° inclination to the plane of the lunar equator, an altitude of 111 km and a population of 312 km, and a circulation period of 130 min. At the estimated time in Houston, Lovell's voice was heard: “This is Apollo 8.” The impulse is fulfilled. ” At T + 071: 41, the astronauts turned on the television transmitter and showed what the moon looked like. She seemed completely colorless, gray. And craters, craters, craters ...  
At T + 073: 35, having completed two turns, the astronauts turned on the SPS again, for 9 seconds. The speed decreased by 41 m / s, the orbit became almost circular: 111x113 km. Ekij page was shooting the moon, working out the navigation technique. Everyone is very tired, and on  
8th turn Borman ordered a rest. And yet in T + 085: 43 they had another television show. It was the evening of December 24, Christmas Eve, and the audience heard how there, in lunar orbit, astronauts read the book of Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ...”  
At T + 089: 19: 17, after 10 turns around the moon, the most alarming moment of flight came - the main engine was turned on for 203.7 seconds to return  
to the earth. Everything went fine, the ship scored 2695 m / s, but the MCC still did not know anything: this maneuver was also carried out behind the Moon. The signal from Apollo appeared at the estimated time - that means it did! But six more long minutes passed before Lovell's voice was heard on Earth: "Let it be known to you, this is Santa Claus." Christmas came to Houston half an hour ago.  
Astronauts rested for a long time on the “Moon – Earth” route: the past nervous tension and overfatigue affected it. Anders even fell asleep for 45 minutes while on duty.  
Only one small correction was made (at T + 104: 00), 310000 km from the Earth. Two more were not needed - CSM moved along the calculated trajectory.  
On December 27, before entering the atmosphere, Bormann unfolded the ship 32 ° in pitch and 45 ° in yaw. At T + 146: 29, the service module was shot, and after 17 minutes the command module entered the atmosphere. The flooding occurred 2600 m from the design point and 4800 m from the aircraft carrier "Yorktown".  
The flight of Apollo 8 was extremely successful. The ship worked brilliantly, and a detailed exploration of the lunar surface was carried out, and in particular, the proposed first landing area in the Sea of Tranquility.


	64. Apollo 9: Lunar Module Exam

March 3, 1969 came the hour of "mission D". "Saturn-5" for the first time put into orbit the entire lunar complex: the command-and-service module CSM-104 and the lunar module LM-3.  
The purpose of Apollo􏰀9 flight was a comprehensive flight test of a manned LM in near-Earth orbit with a simulation of the operating conditions and conditions of astronauts landing on the moon. This was the first of five starts planned for 1969: February 28, May 17, July 15, September 12, and December 10.  
As in the previous two flights, the astronauts had suits of the A7L type, but in two different versions. Scott command module pilot had an “internal” version of the spacesuit weighing 16.1 kg. Commander McDivitt and the pilot of the lunar module Schweikart used an “outer” version of the spacesuit with an additional multi-layer outer shell protecting the astronaut from heat, cold and micrometeorites, and an additional protective shield face mask. Their spacesuits were equipped with an autonomous runtime life support system (LSS) PLSS, designed for 4 hours of operation, and an emergency oxygen supply unit with a 30-minute supply; all together had a mass of 83 kg. Before going out to the spacesuit, a special water cooling jacket was put on.  
The launch of Apollo􏰀9 had to be postponed for three days, because all its pages were cold. Despite the presence of distinguished guests (the new US Vice President Spiro Agnew arrived at the launch), the launch was successful, and 11 minutes 15 seconds after the launch, the S-IVB stage with a ship with a total mass of 134720 kg went into orbit with a height of 185 x 187 km.  
At T + 002: 41: 16, Scott undocked the command and service module, moved 15 m and turned 180 °. Four panels of the adapter were shot, and the lunar module remaining without shelter could be photographed.  
At T + 003: 01: 59 the tunnel between the two modules was inflated, Scott opened the CSM hatch and made sure that the 12 locks of the docking device worked correctly. Together with Schweikart, they connected the electrical circuits and energized the LM, and then closed the hatch.  
At T + 004: 08: 09 the Apollo 9 separated from the step, and Scott led the ship to a safe distance. On commands from Earth, a further two times J􏰀2 steps: for the first time at T + 004: 45: 56 for 62 seconds and the second at T + 006: 07: 19 for 242 seconds; after that, S-IVB went into the heliocentric orbit.  
At T + 005: 59, the astronauts corrected their orbits and raised their climax to 236 km; In this case, the stability of the docking device to vibration and loads was checked. “To God, LM is still here,” Scott said after the maneuver. Then the astronauts turned off unnecessary systems and were able to rest: McDivitt slept for two hours, Scott for six, Schweikart for seven.  
During the second day the astronauts practiced complex turns on three  
axes and made three inclusions of the marching rocket engine - at 110, 280 and  
28 sec At the same time, the ability of the stabilization system was checked  
nations to extinguish indignation and  
digital autopilot bot. An idea of the magnitude of these maneuvers is given by a 280-second lateral impulse: the calculated increment of speed is 783 m / s, fuel consumption is 8462 kg (!), And the displacement of the flight path is 10 °. During the last 45 seconds of engine operation, McDivitt controlled the thrust vector manually *. After the maneuver, Apollo 9 remained in orbit at a height of 209x509 km.  
The task of the third day was to test the LM systems. Schweikart was supposed to dismantle the docking unit and be the first to move it, but when he put on his spacesuit, Russell was sick. Instead of it, David dismantled the SU and ensured the oxygen filling of the LM take-off stage. At T + 043: 15, Schweikart nevertheless switched to LM, and after 50 minutes, McDivitt joined him. They turned on the on-board LM power supplies, checked the main switches and indicators, as well as the supply of oxygen to the spacesuits from the onboard LM stocks. At T + 045: 00, Scott and Schweikart issued a command and observed the deployment of landing supports.  
At T + 049: 41: 34, the astronauts switched on the LM landing stage engine (PS) for 371.5 seconds, were convinced of the excellent stabilization during the operation of the digital autopilot, and checked the manual throttle throttle. It was a lateral pulse with an increase in velocity of 522 m / s. Vibration during the operation of the LRE caused in some places the delamination of the aluminum foil of the heat insulating coating LM. At T + 051: 35 they returned to the SM and at T + 054: 26 the fifth inclusion of the marching rocket engine for 43.3 seconds transferred the complex to an orbit of 233x243 km altitude.  
On the 4th day of the summer, the Swiss card was scheduled to go into outer space from LM with a transfer on behalf of CMK iamkluk and vice versa. This was the only test of the lunar spacesuit in a space vacuum before reaching the moon. On the eve, at the request of McDivitt, it was decided to reduce the exit program to depressurization of both parts of the ship and the opening of hatches. But on March 6, Schweikart felt better, and he was allowed to enter the platform at the LM front hatch.  
Schweikart and McDivitt in spacesuits switched to LM, Scott remained in CM. At T + 072: 45, the lunar module was depressurized, MacDivitt opened the hatch without difficulty, and Schweikart, connected to the ship with a 7.6-meter halyard, climbed legs forward out. Soon he was already standing on the platform in front of the hatch, his legs fastened in the locks, and could not restrain his admiration: “Oh guys! What a view! ”In the meantime, Scott, while still connected to the SJO of the command module, opened his hatch and tucked his waist - the picture taken by Schweikart bypassed newspapers around the world. Russell reported that he was feeling well, the suit was very comfortable, and he had no difficulty. The LM pilot even tried to move along the module, holding on to the pore.  
Chen both astronauts took samples from their modules and one after another disappeared inside.  
On the 5th day of the flight, the crew conducted the most important experiment - an autonomous flight LM. A small boat was lowered from a large ship - how will it sail, can it return?  
The undocking took place at T + 092: 39: 36. The CSM moved about 15 m from the LM, McDivitt tilted it forward 90 ° and made a full turn in pitch and yaw so that Scott could inspect the module from all sides.  
Jim turned on the radar transponder and launched a low thrust rocket engine at T + 093: 02: 54. After half a turn, the two modules dispersed already 3.7 km: Scott ahead, behind  
McDivitt and Schweikart. The call sign for LM was “Spider” (“Spider”), and astronauts gave the name “Gumdrop” (“Lollipop”) to the CSM module: when the module was transported around the cosmodrome in a special package, it looked like a big candy. .. McDivitt tracked the direction to CSM, and Schweikart set up the gyro platform and entered the updated data into the emergency guidance system.  
At T + 093: 47: 35, McDivitt turned on the PS engine, first at 10% of full thrust, then at 20%. Suddenly, the engine began to “puff,” vibration began. The commander waited a few seconds - the "pant" stopped. Then he raised the thrust to 40% and brought the momentum to the end. Spyder der and Hamdrop diverged; Schweikart determined the range to CSM and radial speed using a radar.  
At T + 095: 39: 08, the astronauts switched on the LRE of the PS for 10% of the thrust for the second time and launched the LM into an almost circular orbit 23 km above the CSM orbit. They saw a “large” ship from a distance of 90 km, and Scott followed them with the help of a sextant from 160 km. The greatest distance was 182 km.  
At T + 096: 16: 07, McDivitt separated the take-off stage (BC) from the landing stage and low-thrust engines reduced its speed. After half a turn, they were 152 km behind the CSM and 18 km lower. At T + 096: 58: 15 the main engine of the aircraft was turned on, and now the entire orbit of the Spider was below the orbit of the Ham Drop. Jim turned on the flashing light so that Dave could observe the approach, but the flasher did not work.  
At T + 097: 57: 59, the CSM was “intercepted” by turning on the low-thrust engines of the aircraft. This "fireworks" Scott saw very well! Using the radar, Jim returned to the CSM, “braked” near him at T + 098: 30: 03 and made a freeze at a distance of 30 m. He turned, showing Scott the LRE the take-off step, and then went to the mooring.  
Sunlight prevented McDivitt, and Scott asked for a moor. However, Jim only asked Dave to control his maneuvers and made a docking at T + 099: 02: 26. The six-hour “sailing” of the space boat was successful.  
Two hours later the aircraft was separated, filled with various “garbage”. After another half an hour, the aircraft engine was switched on for 362.3 seconds and put the step into orbit with an apogee of 6965 km. Only on October 23, 1981 did it burn out in the atmosphere.  
The next five days, astronauts continued testing CSM systems, conducted Earth photographing and communication experiments, observed the Pegasus 3 satellite, performed the 6th and 7th turns of the CSM marching rocket engine. The last (8th) inclusion of the marching rocket engine was performed at T + 240: 31 over the area north of the Hawaiian Islands and lasted only 10 seconds, but this was enough to leave the SM from orbit. Water flooding occurred at T + 241: 00: 54 5 km from the calculated point, near the helicopter carrier “Guadalcanal”.


	65. Apollo 10: To the Moon - 14 km

The Apollo 10 flight program included the CSM + LM complex in orbit around the moon and the development of all operations of the lunar expedition, with the exception of the landing on the moon itself. In other words, it was mission F.  
November 13, 1968 in the crews of the "tenth" were appointed:  
➊ T. Stafford, J. Young, Yu.Sernan;  
➋ G. Cooper, D. Eisel, E. Mitchell. Members of the primary and backup crews were trained for almost 1000 hours: they were prepared to repeat “eighth” or “ninth” if they failed, and hoped that they would be entrusted with the landing. “For” it was George Miller, head of the Manned Fields Directorate, and “against” - Cristofer Kraft, the “chief manager”. On March 24, program director Sam Phillips listened to the parties and decided: there should be a dress rehearsal! Therefore, the LM-4 lunar module was used, which is slightly heavier than the serial LM-5, and it was not completely filled so that the mass of the take-off degree was closer to the “correct” mass after take-off from the Moon.  
Apollo 10 ”was launched on May 18, 1969 at 16:49 UTC from the second launch complex - LC-39B. 713.8 seconds after the launch, the S􏰀IVB stage with the ship entered the orbit with an inclination of 32.55 °, height 185x186 km. The mass of the ship was 42811 kg: command module - 5569 kg, service module - 23301 kg, lunar - 13941 kg.  
For two hours, the astronauts checked the on-board systems and prepared for the second inclusion of S включIVB. This happened at T + 002: 33: 28; engine J􏰀2 worked with wild shaking for 343 seconds and brought the step to the flight path to the moon.  
Stafford began rebuilding its compartments at T + 003: 02: 42 3,000 km from Earth and ended up separating the complex from the steps at T + 003: 56: 26 and  
withdrawal maneuver in  
T + 004: 39: 10. Then it turned out that the heat-insulating coating on the outside of the CM hatch was very weak, and a stream of oxygen passing through the valve in the center of the hatch tore off the outer mylar film and damaged glass wool layer. Astronauts discovered this when they opened the SM hatch and entered the tunnel to check the operation of the locks. Particles of mylar and glass wool spread through the tunnel into the cabin, getting into the respiratory tract and under overalls, causing coughing, sneezing, and skin itching.  
12 hours after the start, the astronauts took off their spacesuits and put on light overalls on underwear. On their way to the moon, they performed eight excellent color television coverage. The flight trajectory was very close to the calculated one. The only correction No2 (at 15 m / s) was carried out at T + 026: 32: 57 at a distance of about 204,000 km from the Earth. The next two were not required.  
To ensure uniform heating by the Sun of all parts of the body during flight along the Earth – Moon route, the “barbecue” mode was used — rotation around the axis at a speed of 0.1 ° / s. However, the Apollon-10 was trying to turn around all the time, and small thrust engines were switched on very often, keeping the longitudinal axis in the set position. Eugene Cernan did not sleep well, but did not complain about this, but about excessive fuel costs, although flight managers considered the overspending to be insignificant. Nevertheless, at the insistence of the crew, the ship was spun at a speed of 0.3 ° / s, and after that, no thrust was required for 30 hours of rocket launch.

At T + 075: 55: 54, the CSM marching rocket engine was switched on for braking for 356 seconds to transfer to the selenocentric orbit. Having spent 10,790 kg of fuel on this maneuver, the complex entered an initial elliptical orbit with a height of 111 × 315 km. The second inclusion took place at T + 080: 25: 08, lasted 14 seconds and gave an almost circular orbit with a height of 110x113 km.  
At T + 081: 55 Cernan moved to LM. After changing the fragments of mylar, Eugene spent two hours checking the on-board systems and communication channels. After filming and describing two possible landing sites for Apollo􏰀11, the crew went to bed - for the first time in orbit around the moon.  
Until May 21, Apollo 10 walked the familiar path laid by the Bormann team. And then came May 22, when it was necessary to take the next step. Stafford and Cernan moved to LM ... and found that he was rotated 3.5 ° relative to the command module. Is it possible to undock, will the locks be damaged? The decision was made by George Low: if the angle is less than 6 ° - it is possible.  
At T + 098: 11: 57, at the 12th orbit around the Moon, above its back, Stafford and Cernan undocked from the CSM in which Young had remained. From across the moon, two modules — the larger Charlie Brown and the smaller Snoopy — came out 9–12 m apart. During this time, Stafford and Young had already managed to do a lot.  
“Snoopy” walked first “feet forward,” “Charlie Brown” followed him. Such a construction was necessary for the introduction of data from the CSM navigation system into the main and emergency LM systems.  
Young turned the CSM 180 ° relative to the longitudinal axis so that the Sun would not shine directly through the windows and Stafford and Cernan inspected and photographed Charlie Brown. Then Stafford turned Snoopy to the right along the yaw line 120 ° and down the pitch 90 ° so that Young could already examine and photograph the LM. Particular attention was paid by John to the condition of the nozzle of the rocket engine of the landing step, and made sure that the racks on the landing gear were fully deployed. Stafford then finished a yaw turn, and Young made a second 180 ° roll to get in touch with Houston. After leaving the moon, Young conducted a color television session showing LM. Astronauts received permission to go into orbit of the descent.  
The joint flight lasted about 35 minutes. Young had to withdraw his module from LM, so as not to interfere with his comrades. At T + 098: 47: 17, he emitted a short vertical impulse with low-thrust engines and went into an orbit 107x116 km high. At this time, both modules were oriented in such a way that the pointed antennas were facing the Earth, the sextant in the SM had LM in the field of view, and the LM radar, which provided an in-flight meeting, “communicated” with the CSM transponder . For about half a turn, for which Charlie Brown moved 4 km, tests of this radar were carried out.

At T + 099: 46: 02, when the modules again went over the invisible side of the moon, Stafford turned on the PS engine: for 15 seconds at 10% of full thrust and another 12.4 seconds at 40%. The Snoopy crossed into an orbit with an altitude of 15.7 x 112.8 km. The site of correction was chosen so that the center was 15 ° east of the site 2 landing site in the Sea of Tranquility. In other words, Stafford and Cernan exactly simulated the pre-landing operations of Apollo 11. Young tracked the Snoopy manually to a distance of 22.5 km.  
At T + 100: 32: 22, astronauts turned on the landing radar, and it showed an oblique range of 23.0 km at a real height above the surface of 21.6 km. With interruptions, the radar worked for about 9 minutes. The minimum height he measured was at T + 100: 41: 40 at Secchi craters - 14450 m *. The error of the radar did not exceed the design (± 1.5%).  
At T + 100: 43 “Snoopy” passed the peri-center, and after another five minutes Stafford and Cernan could observe the Site 2 point from an altitude of only 17300 m, flying over it at a speed of 1.65 km / s.  
At T + 100: 58: 26, 15 minutes after passing the pericenter, at the command of the on-board computer, the LRE of the PS turned on for the second time and worked for 39.95 seconds (the first 26 seconds at 10% thrust, then at full throttle). The purpose of this maneuver was to let Charlie Brown go forward. Now the height of the Snoopy pericenter was 22.4 km, and that of the apocenter was 352 km.  
Stafford and Cernan had to photograph the far side of the moon, but could not, because their 70mm camera failed even when photographing the Site 2 point.  
Having described the sweeping arc around the CSM, the lunar module again descended below it. Now, Stafford and Cernan had to undock the landing stage and perform another maneuver. But 45 seconds before the separation, the LM suddenly began to slowly turn sideways ... paused ... and five seconds before the separation went into a quick and random rotation. "Son of a bitch! Cernan exclaimed in his hearts. “What is happening ?!” His pulse jumped to 129, although before that he had not risen above 91.  
Stafford separated the landing stage according to the schedule (T + 102: 45: 17), cold-bloodedly reasoning that it would be easier to stop the rotation of the small take-off stage. But it wasn’t there: the rotation speed reached 20–25 ° in all axes. Cernan was afraid that the gyro platform of the main navigation system would be in full focus and a maneuver could be thwarted, in which only 10 minutes remained.  
As it turned out, the crew twice in a minute switched the AGS emergency navigation system mode from “Stabilization” to “Automatic”: the first time - by mistake, the second - due to faulty gyro data in the scanning channel. Getting into the "Automatic" mode, AGS tried to deploy the "Snoopy" with the Z axis in the direction of the command module - and did it, despite the best efforts of Stafford!  
Having included the main engine of the aircraft in T + 102: 55: 01 for 15.6 seconds, Stafford transferred it to an orbit similar to the orbit of the satellite after launch from the moon: 20.4x86.1 km. Shortly afterwards, the Snookee radar hijacked Young's ship.  
At T + 103: 45: 55, a small thrust rocket engine was included, which transferred the step to an orbit with a height of 75.4x90.2 km. In its apocenter, the aircraft was 27.2 km lower than the CSM and 274 km behind it. The correction at T + 104: 43: 53 ensured the transfer of the aircraft into orbit, the coelliptic * orbit of CSM, with a constant difference in height of 27.8 km. Shortly thereafter, “Snookie” once again passed over Site 2, and Stafford said that 25-30% of the selected site is suitable for landing:  
on the near side it is even, and on the far landing it is possible if there is enough fuel for hovering and horizontal movement in search of a suitable place.  
Young “caught” the lunar module with a sextant from a distance of 259 km, and the LM crew saw flashing light on the CSM from 78 km. By the way, the most “long-range” of the range measuring systems turned out to be the radio-technical system of the command module, combined with VHF radio: it even worked for 550 km.  
The final stage of rapprochement, “interception," Stafford began at T + 105: 22: 55. The small thrust rocket engine operated for 15 seconds, the pulse was given along the line of sight, at 26.0 ° to the horizon. Velocity equalization was performed beyond the Moon, and two modules entered the visibility zone at the 16th orbit at a distance of several meters from each other. With manual control, the LM turned out to be quite capricious, and nevertheless, the astronauts performed brilliantly closer to the moon. John Young docked at T + 106: 22: 02; separate flight lasted 8 hours 10 minutes.  
Returning aboard the CSM along with the removed films, Stafford and Cernan transferred all the “garbage” accumulated in the crew compartment to the aircraft in bags. The step was separated with adventures: it was not possible to relieve pressure from the tunnel, during separation the sunroof “slammed”, and depressurization took place. Nevertheless, by command from Earth, the PS engine was switched on before fuel production - for 249 sec. The step became a satellite of the sun.  
The third day in the near-moon orbit was devoted to observing lunar landmarks and shooting the planned landing areas, as well as scientifically interesting relief elements. At T + 132:07 a 24-minute television session began. The views of the moon were impressive, the image quality was very good.  
Apollo􏰀10 spent 61 hours 37 minutes in orbit around the moon and made 31 turns. At T + 137: 36: 29, a marching rocket engine was turned on to transition to the flight path to Earth. After working 164 seconds, he reported to CSM a speed increment of 1105 m / s. Before switching on, the CSM mass was 16000 kg; after switching on, it was 11400 kg; acceleration reached 0.75 g.  
Immediately after the launch to the Earth, astronauts conducted a color television session lasting 43 minutes, during which they showed a gradually receding moon; for some time its reverse side was also visible. Of the three corrections on the Luna-Earth route, only one, the last, was required. About a day before the splashdown, astronauts took a flight aboard - for the first time in the history of American manned flights.  
Separation of CM from SM occurred at T + 191: 33: 26, entry into the atmosphere at a speed of 11069 m / s - at T + 191: 48: 55. The flooding occurred on May 26 in the Pacific Ocean, 2.4 km from the calculated point and 5.4 km from the Princeton aircraft carrier.  
The general rehearsal of the lunar expedition was completely successful. The launch of Apollo 11 was scheduled for July 16th.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apollo 11 will be the longest chapter yet.


	66. Apollo 11: First humans on the moon

Introduction 

On July 13 and 16, 1969, two spacecraft launched to the Moon one after the other: the Soviet Luna-15 automatic Earth sampling automatic interplanetary station and the Apollon-11 American manned spacecraft. The landing was planned on the same day, July 20. Here it is - the moment of truth, the finale of the lunar race, the last opportunity: “for us” - to save the cosmic prestige; “For them” - establish a new, personal  
National reckoning championship in space. But this is politics, and there were also specific tasks of the Apollo 11 mission: to make a landing, to prove the ability of astronauts to work on the lunar surface, to collect mineralogical samples, to install experimental equipment and lunar soil  
noe - to return from the Moon to Earth.  
On January 6, 1969, Neil (Neil) Arms􏰀trong, Michael Collins, and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin came to Dick Slayton’s office one by one, and left the crew of the Eleventh.  
According to the schedule, they were the first to land on the moon, but there was still a lot of “if”. The Apollon 9 and Apollon 10 could fail, and vice versa - the next “leap” and the decision to land the “tenth” were not ruled out.  
Many years later, Slayton wrote that his main candidate for the commander of the first lunar expedition was Grissom, and after his death, Bormann and McDivitt deserved this honor more than others. Three more, Stafford, Arms􏰀trong, and Conrad, would no doubt have completed the task brilliantly. Out of this five, McDivitt and Conrad were busy with the ninth, and Bormann, who had just returned from the moon, said: “I can’t do it anymore.” Stafford crew  
loving “Apollon-7”, I prepared for the “dress rehearsal”. The Apollo􏰀8 understudies remained - Armstrong, Aldrin and Hayes.  
It was impossible to entrust the first landing on the Moon Haze, a brilliant pilot, who, however, had never flown into space before. Slayton got out of the situation simply: the Michael Collins removed from the “eighth” fully recovered after the operation and could return to his “legitimate” position as the pilot of the command module. It will remain in orbit around the moon, and commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Edwin Aldrin will step on its surface.  
The crews officially announced on January 10, 1969: ➊ N. Armstrong, M. Collins, E. Aldrin;  
➋ J. Lovell, W. Anders,  
F. Hayes.

50 to 50

Soviet and American AMS “Luna” and “Serveyor”, performed in 1966–67. preliminary studies of the lunar surface showed that the soil will retain the lunar module.  
In February 1968, according to a detailed survey from the Lunar Or􏰀biter spacecraft there were five possible landing sites. Two in the Sea of Tranquillity,one in the Central Gulf,and two in the Ocean of Storms. The easternmost region of Site 1 “disappeared” after observations from Apollo􏰀8, and in March 1969 it was decided to consider the main point of Site 2 in the southwestern part of the Sea of Tranquility. When the launch was delayed from July 16 to 18, the landing was transferred to the Central Bay (Site 3), and when launched on July 21, to the Ocean of Storms (Site 5). Only with such a “schedule” did the Sun during landing appear behind, at an altitude of 9–11 ° above the horizon.  
Until the middle of 1968, the program managers hardly thought about what exactly the astronauts would do on the moon. Will one man or both go to the moon, one will come out or two - what difference does it make if the Apollos still do not fly ?! Scientists, on the contrary, knew well what they needed: astronauts should place an ALSEP scientific set of six instruments on the surface and conduct field geological research.

At the end of August 1968, astronauts 􏰀 scientists Don Lind and Harrison Schmitt tried the option with two exits at the lunar test site ’. It became clear, firstly, that the task for the first expedition was unreasonably difficult, and, secondly, that we had to leave together, and not alone. In September – October, a new work plan was made up, and on November 15 it was announced: there will be one exit for three hours, and instead of a complete set of ALSEP, two astronauts will deploy its abridged version of EASEP (three devices). The final “polishing” of the plan continued until the last days of June 1969.  
There was another point that NASA tried not to advertise. The fuel supply in the landing stage of the lunar module was such that 140 seconds remained for maneuvering at the surface (plus 20 seconds of the reserve for emergency shooting of the landing stage and entering the engine’s take-off mode if it was impossible to land). Any weighting of the LM would mean that the commander would have less time to find the landing site. Therefore, stocks of LSS were taken only a little more than a day and  
did not seek to bring more scientific equipment; therefore, the crew had only one portable Hasselblad camera.  
And there was a question: who will be the first to go to the moon? Initially, it was believed that the pilot LM, that is - Aldrin. When they decided that both would go, it turned out that it was easier for the commander to get out of the cramped module first. Aldrin tried to argue, but unsuccessfully: both Armstrong and Logic and seniority were in a row.  
... There are many variations􏰀 of percentage calculations for moon missions; send then at the opinion of the astronauts: "50 to 50". Is it a lot or a little? When testing aviation equipment with such a forecast of success, the aircraft will be “driven” for a long time along the runway, make short breaks, jumps, flights in a circle, etc., and then after two tests of the complex (Apollo 9 "And 􏰀10) - a real moon!  
Eight years will pass, and Neil Arms􏰀trong will visit the incurably ill chief designer of the Saturn 5 lunar rocket, Werner von Braun, and he will say: “... Statistically my prospects are very bad ...” - “But you know, statistics can be wrong ... ”Armstrong says. And von Braun will answer: “Statistically - you should have died in space, but you should have shot me in the Gestapo.”

Earth to moon  
The distance to the Moon is 30 “terrestrial” diameters filled with silent space blackness. A small aluminum "grain of sand" should scatter through it and gently, obediently sit somewhere down there, at the bottom of the Sea of Tranquility ...  
So, July 16, 1969, 1:32 p.m. GMT, the flight time is T + 000: 00: 00. “Saturn 5” breaks away from the launch pad!  
T + 000: 02: 42 - the first stage has finished work.  
T + 000: 03: 18 - at an altitude of 80 km, the SAS farm and the upper fairing of the ship are separated. Armstrong: “Finally they gave me a window to look out.”  
MCC: “Nice to go!”  
T + 000: 09: 08 - the second disconnected. T + 000: 11: 49 - Apollo 11 at about  
Earth orbit. After a few minutes, the MCC will name the astronaut's heart rate at launch: Armstrong - 110, Aldrin - 99, Collins - 88. For comparison, at the first start of each on Gemini: 146, 125 and 110.  
T + 002: 44: 16 - second launch of the 3rd stage rocket engine, start to the moon. Engine J􏰀2 runs 5 min 47 sec. Armstrong: “Aw, Houston! Saturn drove us great. No complaints to any of the three steps. Everything was amazing".  
T + 004: 17: 03 - compartments were rebuilt, the CSM + LM complex was separated from S-IVB. The mission has begun!  
T + 009: 36. The crew determines the orientation by the stars. Collins: “The reason for the delay, Charlie [Duke], is that it is difficult to find two stars that are not covered by LM, and even so that they would not be in the middle of an artificial star field from our emissions.”  
T + 011: 26. There is a television broadcast of the view of the Earth from the Apollo board. “Houston, listen, is it possible to turn the Earth a little so that you can see anything but water?”  
... Morning July 17th. Bruce McCandless read astronauts the latest earthly news: “... The British large radio telescope Jodrell-Bank has ceased to receive signals from an unmanned Soviet station ... Apparently,“ Moon-15 ”has gone beyond the Moon. Vice President Spiro Agnew called for a man to land on Mars by the year 2000 ... American hippies will not issue a tourist card to enter Mexico until they take a bath and get a haircut ... Decision of President Nixon to declare Monday the holiday for federal employees, so that they can track ... the landing of Apollo 11, it is accepted with surprise ... Europe is captured by the flight of Apollo ... The House of Lords was assured that a small American 􏰀 submarine will not harm the Loch Ness monster ... "  
T + 026: 45. Trajectory correction.  
T + 028: 40. MCC: “We are still working on the problem, we will inform you of the details later.” Michael: “It will be a difficult repair.” MCC: “And what kind of music do you have there?” Michael: “This is Buzz singing.”  
T + 033: 38. MCC: “The latest news about Luna􏰀15 - in the morning TASS reported that it was in circular orbit ... Many states, municipalities and enterprises also let people go home, so you will have a lot of spectators.”  
T + 053: 52. July 18, news: “Interest in Apollo remains high, but in Houston it is in competition with softening the rules for watering lawns ... Thor Heyerdahl reports that the crew of the Russian boat Ra will enter Bridgetown, although it is damaged by a storm. .. "  
T + 055: 30. Astronauts open the hatch in the LM, inspect the still not warmed module "Eagle". There is a television show, the MCC in the picture recounts the objects: "We see a bag with helmets ... We see the backpack systems, on the right." Everything in its place ... What would be more - laughter or tears - if you forgot something?  
T + 072: 30. Day four. Fresh news: “Even Pravda in Russia puts you on the headline and calls Neil the king of the ship ... Bavarian schoolchildren were given a day off ... Pope Paul VI organized a special color television channel to watch you ...”  
T + 073: 17. The moon is approaching rapidly. “The view of the Moon is simply wonderful! .. It fills 3/4 of the illuminator! .. For the sake of this it was worth flying!”  
T + 075: 49: 50. Beyond the Moon, the CSM engine is turned on for braking - and the Apollon 11 “sits” in the initial elliptical orbit of 111x314 km, and then passes into the almost circular lunar orbit of 101x122 km. Anomalies of the gravitational field of the Moon - mascones - should at the time of landing make it circular.

Site 2 - top view

  
From photographs and stories of predecessors, Neil Armstrong learned how to approach the landing site as well as he knew the deserted surroundings of Edwards air base. Now - as soon as the Sun rises over the Sea of Tranquility - he will be able to see everything with his own eyes.  
“Plot No. 2” was an ellipse 5 19 km long, the length of Manhattan Island, almost at the equator, without unnecessary relief “sights”, in a word, easy to land.  
On this day, July 19, Site 2 was just at the border of light and shadow. When Aldrin sailed to LM to check the systems, Armstrong paused at the windows of the command module, hoping to find the final waypoint. But Buzz managed to see Site 2 first, and Neil and Michael a little later.  
From a height of 110 km, Plot No2 looked tiny, but what was visible was alarming. The shadows were so long that even the most insignificant parts of the landscape seemed jagged ridges. The Sea of Tranquility looked impregnable and a place where I would like to sit down last.  
“It's amazing how quickly you get used to it,” Collins said thoughtfully at dinner. “It no longer seems strange to me that you can look out of the window and see the passing moon there.”  
Behind these calm words, Michael hid the excitement of his comrades. Armstrong and Aldrin seemed completely relaxed ... but he could not accept that the risk measure was completely different for him and for them. Collins saw the flight as a long and fragile chain of events and knew that it could break ...  
Now he felt like a father with two children who are facing a long and dangerous journey. He stayed on guard all night: "You guys should get a good night's sleep." And while Neil and Buzz were preparing supplies the next morning, Collins said, “I think this day went very well. If tomorrow and the day after tomorrow will be like today - then we will be all right ... "

“Bye!"

  
July 20. A minute before the separation, Collins advised his friends: “You are there on the moon more calmly. If I hear you panting and cursing, I’ll let you down on you. ”  
T + 100: 12: 00. Michael pushed the button to release LM: “Okay, go! “Personally!” From the push of the springs of the docking mechanism, the “Eagle” and “Columbia” diverged. Armstrong stabilized the rotation with short inclusions of small thrust rocket engine, the spider robot stood “facing” Colombia. Collins filmed the slow turn of the Eagle in front of him.  
“Your fly looks good, guys,” Collins remarked, “despite the fact that you are upside down.” Armstrong immediately responded: “Yes, one of us is definitely up and down with cars.” “Guys, be careful!” Collins radioed. And Armstrong answered simply: "See you."  
Everything went according to the established scheme: at T + 100: 39: 53 Collins gave a short impulse to the maneuvering engines - and Columbia began to retreat until the Eagle turned into a luminous point. After half a turn, at T + 101: 36: 14, beyond the Moon, Armstrong had already turned on the engine for 30 seconds and reduced the peritoneal movement to 14.4 km. The Eagle reached it after 57 minutes. Only Stafford and Cernan reached this place.  
Landing can be divided into three stages. The first is the damping of the orbital speed by the engine during the descent from 14400 to 2300 m, to the “upper gate”. This LM section extends “legs forward”. Next - descent to the "lower gate" at an altitude of 150 m with a gradual turn into a vertical position. The crew evaluates the relief of the site and selects a place. If necessary - lateral displacement and descent of the LM.  
Armstrong and Aldrin stood inside the Eagle, fastened with straps to the floor, and looked through the helmets through the triangular windows-illuminators and the dashboard. The rocket engine needed to be switched on for braking at an altitude of 15 km above the Moon and at a distance of 480 km from Site 2.  
Their lips were dry with pure oxygen suits. Before turning on the minute ... “What else remains to be done?” Neil made sure that Buzz turned on the movie camera for recording the moon landing and set the landing gear engine toggle switch to the “Ready” position.  
T + 102: 33: 05. Buzz pressed the start button, and both of them simultaneously said, “Ignition.” “Almost on time,” Neil added after a few seconds. A new countdown began - from the moment the descent began. According to estimates, about 12 minutes remained before landing.  
The engine started very softly, but after half a minute it reached full throttle and “roared” - the cabin was shaken by soundless high-frequency vibration.  
The "eagle" went down the windows, and Armstrong recognized the "milestones" on the descent track. They appeared 2-3 seconds earlier than the time, and yet one second is one mile of the way ... "We have a flight."  
It is time to turn the Eagle 180 ° around its longitudinal axis - so that the landing radar “sees” the surface of the Moon. Armstrong made a U-turn at an altitude of 14 km, and the astronauts saw above themselves, like goodbye, a small Earth, lonely floating in a distant cosmic darkness ...  
Exactly five minutes after T’, the radar “grabbed” the Moon and showed 850 m less than the navigation system “thought”. No wonder: the moon is uneven and not even completely round!

“Error 1202 "

  
T ’+ 05: 20. Suddenly, astronauts heard a high-frequency signal in the headphones, all information was erased from the computer display and one yellow key blinked ...  
Armstrong radiated with a firm voice: "Software error." Aldrin pressed a flashing key, the display highlighted a line of the signal code:  
"1202". Armstrong: "These are two, eleven, zero, two ... Give us information about software error 1202."  
Only the Earth could tell how serious this is and whether it is urgently necessary to interrupt the descent. More precisely, the 26-year-old Steve Bales from the duty shift at MCC-H, a lunar module navigation specialist, and his partner, 24-year-old Jack Garman. Everyone waited, it seemed, not breathing; after a minute, the astronauts had to throttle the engine thrust, and without a functioning computer this is unthinkable. Is it really an “abortion”, the cessation of descent, the failure of a task?  
Garman and Bales knew: 1202 is the code for a debugging error, in the summer it should not  
to be. Stuttering from tension, Bales said on the inner circular: "You can continue." Charles Duke echoed in a cup: “We continue on this mistake!” After the first replica of Armstrong, 27 seconds passed ...  
It is worth recalling that it was an on-board navigation computer. 36864 words of read-only memory, 2048 words of operational memory, multi-tasking real-time operating system, several dozens of programs, a primitive input / output console. Error 1202 appeared because several times in a row the dock radar data processing program requested working cells in memory, and these cells ... just ran out! But these requests came because Arms Trong set the radar to the wrong mode. By mistake 1202, the onboard computer rebooted, restored important tasks, and reset secondary ones. Therefore, it was possible to continue the descent.  
While Houston sorted out error 1202, the first horizon appeared as a narrow strip at the bottom of the triangular illumination of the windows of the Eagle. The module began to slowly "get up" from the "lying" position.

T ’+ 06: 27. The engine thrust dropped to 55%, the pilots felt relieved from stopping the shaking. A long “next” braking ended.  
Aldrin found that error 1202 appears less frequently if you did not ask the computer about the moment of a turn to the vertical position, and asked Houston to transfer this data on board.  
T ’+ 08: 31. Altitude 1700 m. The P64 program was launched, the module went on a U-turn. The moon was already clearly visible in the illuminators and looked almost like the Earth when the plane was landing, only because of the proximity of the horizon it was unbelievably rocking. The crater-covered plain of the lunar Sea of Tranquility sparkled in the morning sun. Arm􏰀strong checked manual control.  
T ’+ 09: 05. Duke: "We authorize the landing." Aldrin: “Accepted. I get it. Landing is resolved. 900 meters. Software bug 1201! ”This was another option for memory overflow, and Houston responded instantly:“ You can continue! ”  
Three craters with a diameter of about 200-300 m lay across the flight path. The “Eagle” flew in the direction of the left of them - then it will be given the name “Western Crater”.  
T ’+ 09: 24. Height 600 m. "Tell the corner." - "47 degrees." - "47 ... The place does not look bad." The angle requested by Neil is the direction to the estimated point of contact. Now, by marks on the porthole, Arm􏰀strong saw where his automation was leading. The surface resembled an old unsuitable desert, dotted with smallpox craters, 5 to 30 m in diameter, abundantly littered with stone placers.  
When the LM descended to 200 m, the Moon took the porthole 3/4, and the West crater was threateningly approaching and rapidly growing on Armsstrong. The Eagle clearly wanted to sit on its northeast slope, dotted with fragments of 2-3 meters or more. “A lot of stones,” Neil said, and decided to look for a better place. In principle, the aiming point could be shifted, but Armstrong no longer trusted the computer.

T ’+ 10: 10. At an altitude of 150 m, Neil took control and turned the module vertically. Buzz did not have time to look out the window — he “saw” what was happening on the small computer screen: “105 meters, down 1.2 ... 100 meters, down 2.0 ... Keep horizontal speed ... "  
Lunar landscape continued to present surprises. Neil had nowhere to turn especially. On the left and bottom are gullies and gullies, on the right is a dense chain of three middle (20–40 m in size) craters. Having passed them, Arms􏰀trong saw two more craters (20–30 m) along the course, and behind them the surface seemed almost “clean”.  
Neil passed the first one at an altitude of 80 m. The surface was covered with holes and hills, but behind the second crater a more or less even “clearing” was clearly visible, and 150 meters were left before it.  
T ’+ 10: 53. “How is the fuel?” - “Eight percent.” “Ok, Ed, that seems to be a good place.” - “Look, our shadow!”

According to the "dead man's curve"

  
T ’+ 11: 02. Height is 75 m. Now they walked along the “dead man's curve”: if the PS engine suddenly stops, they will not have enough heights to have time to separate and start abruptly on the aircraft engine. On Earth, to the questions of journalists - what will happen if this happens? “Armstrong usually replied that everything would be ok,“ we will just fall to the moon ... ”And now he saw that the place he had chosen was again unsuitable. “I'm going right above the crater. I’ll try to get away. ”  
T ’+ 11: 25. A warning light came on - fuel remained for 94 seconds. Armstrong's pulse rose to 150 per minute ...  
T ’+ 11: 34. Decreasing, Armstrong moved over the 33-meter East crater and began looking for a “piglet”. The jet of the engine began to “reach out” the surface: the entire area began to “wash off”, like a watercolor painting moistened with water, then trickles of blown dust became visible.  
T ’+ 11: 57. Prior to this, Houston was silent, so as not to interfere with Armstrong. At MCC, they only heard Aldrin’s voice and did not understand why Neil was going forward and not sitting down. Kapkom Charlie Duke broke the silence and said: "60 seconds." Everything - from operators who did not take their eyes off the displays, to VIP-personnel - froze in the quiet of the hall, waiting for how it would end.  
From a height of 20 m, he spotted a place clean of stones and potholes. Slowly, sideways, at an altitude of 15 to 10 m, he “rode” on him and completely extinguished the gradual movement.  
T ’+ 12: 11. “12 meters, down 0.8. Dust rose. ” On the ground, the shadow of the probe of the module landing support appeared, a second later the shadow of the “paw” itself appeared.  
“Six meters, down 0.15, slightly moving forward. Good".  
"30 seconds!"  
The shadow of the left LM post and its plate-shaped support fell already to the bottom of the window. Behind the shadow of the engine, the contours of the shadow of the front pillar with a ladder, washed away by creeping dust, appeared. Unexpectedly, this “bouquet of shadows” dramatically overshadowed the entire window ... Another second - and everything froze.  
T ’+ 12: 35. Aldrin: “Contact Signal.” This means that the probe has touched the ground and the engine must be turned off. Neil did not see the light bulb on and did not hear Buzz - he pressed the shutdown button 1.5 seconds after touching.  
3 days 6 hours 45 minutes and 40 seconds elapsed from the start of Apollo 11. It was July 20, 20:17:40 UTC.  
Armstrong: "Shutdown!"  
Aldrin: “Ok, the engine is off.” The next few phrases are nothing  
they could say “to a man from the street” - Neil and Buzz, according to the instructions, worked out the actions after landing. The handle is sideways, stabilization engines are turned off from this, the control mode is “Automatic”, the engine is ready to be removed, and the landing sign - number +10000 - is put into cell 413.  
17 seconds after touching the drip, Charlie Duke decided to break the silence: “We hear you,“ Eagle. ” And Armstrong replied: “Houston, this is the Bas for Tranquility. The Eagle has landed. ”  
Duke: “Well, we can breathe again ...”  
Silence fell in the lunar module, and two people turned to each other in a tiny cabin. Their eyes met, their unshaven faces smiled at each other in bubble helmets, and their gloved hands shook hands. They did it!*  
Rejoiced Houston, rejoiced America. And in Moscow, midnight was approaching, and in the news, the announcer read out a message (quoted from memory): “... Today, at 23 hours 17 minutes 43 seconds Moscow time, the lunar cabin of the Apollon 11 American spacecraft made a successful landing to the moon’s surface in the area of the Sea of Tranquility with coordinates ... Expedition commander Neil Armstrong reported: “Houston, says Tranquility Base. "Eagle" on the moon ... ""  
We had no sense of defeat in some kind of “race”, and we did not know anything about it, but there was a strange, “suspended” state of mind: and what are we, always the first ones?

Base of Tranquility  
Where the bearing "Eagle", nobody knew. Collins tried to see him from orbit with the help of a sextant, but in vain. It was clear: having switched to manual control over the Zapadny crater, Armstrong went ahead at a course of 400 meters. But how to find this crater in the pictures? Actually, they found him later, when the laser reflector started working; then we also determined the coordinates of the landing site: 0 ° 41’15 ’’ N, 23 ° 26 ’E The flight of the calculated point was 6870 m. When touched, the vertical velocity was 0.5, and the lateral velocity was 0.6 m / s. In SS tanks, about 350 kg of fuel remained for 50 seconds of flight ...  
The first minutes went to check the systems: what if you suddenly need to take off? Houston studied telemetry and transmitted: “Allow to stay.” And only after almost 20 minutes Armstrong was able to look around.  
The Eagle rested on a wide plain, pockmarked by craters, with stones randomly scattered around. Some ridges could be seen in the distance: they could be 5 meters high, and 10 — for comparison, there were no structures, no trees, or other landmarks, which usually judge size and distance. Ahead, perhaps half a mile away, was a hill.  
The lack of atmosphere gave the view unreal clarity. The boulders on the horizon were as sharp as the stones near the module supports. The most surprising seemed the strange play of light and color. The direct rays of the sun made the landscape bronze in the west, on the left and right it was darkened to almost brown, and below, near the LM itself, the soil had an ash gray color. The landscape did not look hostile and did not seem to be a place where an unprotected person instantly dies.  
Armstrong looked through the small upper window and saw a white-blue Earth in the absolutely black sky of the Moon. “She's big, bright, and beautiful,” he said to the bastard Charlie Duke.  
The exit from LM was planned in the middle of the 22-hour period of Orla's stay on the lunar surface, before that it was supposed to rest four hours. But Armstrong agreed with the MCC another time for the start of the exit - five hours after landing, about 20 hours according to Houston time. Charlie Duke delightfully remarked: “Yes, you guys take the prime time!” But before lunch, there was one small action ...  
There have been moments in the history of mankind in some ways similar to the Apollo 11 landing - for example, on May 29, 1953, when Hillary and Tensing were the first to climb the summit of Everest. The first behaved as a “conqueror” and aimed the camera at the surrounding mountain peaks. At the same time, Sherp Tensing hollowed out a depression in the snow and filled it with gifts to his God. For him, the rise was not a conquest, but a pilgrimage.  
The “Tensing” of the Moon was Buzz Aldrin, who conceived a personal spiritual order. Long before the start, he began to look for some symbolic gesture, which would be worthy of the great moment of man's penetration of Selena, and decided to send the sacrament.  
Dick Slayton forbade him to broadcast a religious ceremony on radio; Aldrin’s communion was a secret disobedience. Buzz took advantage of the lull, opened the bag, took out a small flask of wine, a bowl and a few wafers. He put everything on a small table just below the keyboard of the emergency navigation system, turned on his microphone and began to speak in a low voice:  
“This is an LM pilot. I would like to use this opportunity to ask everyone who listens to me, whoever and wherever he is, stop for a moment, think about the events of the last few hours and give thanks ... ”  
With lunar gravity, the wine poured slowly, gracefully spinning on the goblet wall. Aldrin read to himself on a small card: “I am the vine, and you are the branches; He who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for without me you cannot do anything. ”  
Armstrong observed Aldrin's ceremony with an expression of slight neglect on his face. By coincidence or by the specificity of the craft — but it was precisely the pilots of the lunar module that sometimes differed in some religiosity (Aldrin, Mitchell, Irwin), while crew commanders never “sinned” this.

To the exit!  
T + 106: 11. After three and a half hours of being on the moon, the crew began to prepare for their exit to the surface. Neil and Buzz put on equipment with the thoroughness of paratroopers, checking the smallest details with instructions. First, there are blue moon boots with rough treads on the soles. On the back are the massive satchels of a portable life support system, which so “poisoned” their life during training on Earth. Hoses of oxygen and water cooling were connected to the spacesuits. An additional outer shield with a gold-plated glass weakening the bright light of the sun was put on the transparent helmets. Finally, special moon gloves with a heat-insulating coating made of woven steel fiber, and the tips on the fingers are made of silicone rubber.  
Now that Armstrong and Aldrin were two spacecraft, it remains to depressurize the Eagle cockpit.  
T + 108: 54: 08. Aldrin opened the valve and relieved pressure to 0.24 atm. The skafans were in order. At T + 108: 56: 02, Buzz reopened the valve. The pressure indicator crawled down. Two minutes later - 20 mm Hg, a minute later - 10.  
T + 109: 02: 45. Aldrin pulled the hatch by the handle: “Let's see if it opens?” The door remained closed. The pressure was still 5 mm. They didn’t want to pull the thin sash, they were afraid to damage it. Finally, Buzz made up his mind and bent one corner on himself, breaking the seal - it worked.  
T + 109: 07: 33. “The hatch went,” Armstrong radioed with obvious excitement in his voice. The hatch opened, but had to wait a few more minutes while cooling the spacesuits.  
T + 109: 16: 49. Neil knelt down with his back to the hatch and began to carefully move his legs out, and then his whole mass in a spacesuit into the hole 81x81 cm. He stopped, tried to move back ... It seems to be working out!  
T + 109: 19: 16. Neil on the doorstep - on the outdoor platform by the hatch.  
T + 109: 21: 18. He tugged on the ring, unlocking the MESA outboard module storage compartment lock to the left of the exit hatch. "MESA went down, everything is fine." This means - the compartment leaned back and opened. A minute later, a black and white television camera turned on, the broadcast of access to the moon began (the first 30 seconds - for some reason, upside down). On the large screen of the MCC there is a strange black-and-white image: the figure of Neil descended from above the picture of the black sky and bright soil and, reaching the bottom step, stopped.  
Almost an hour passed from the moment the spacesuits were connected to the autonomous SJO to the first step along the moon. Armstrong’s wife subsequently joked: “He was taking time, because he had not yet figured out what he would say when he stepped on the moon.”

First step  
The four LM racks were telescopic - with a hard landing, they would become shorter, bringing the gangway closer to the lunar surface. But the Eagle landed softly - and the racks did not shrink; 90 cm remained from the bottom step of the ladder to the dish-shaped rack support.  
Holding his hands on the handrails of the ramp, Neil carefully descended into the shadow of the lunar module, and at T + 109: 22: 48 he stood with both feet on the disk support. He stood for a few seconds ... and jumped up: "I just checked the return to the first step, Buzz." He said this, and his legs dangled in front of the camera - the push was weak.  
Pulling up his hands, the astronaut returned to the bottom step. He took a breath, then boldly jumped and, after a half second of a smooth bounce, confidently “landed” on the same support. He noted with satisfaction: “Well, a good little jump ...” He looked down: “The supports entered the ground only one or two inches, although the surface seems very, very fine-grained ... Almost like gunpowder.” In training, Neil's voice was decisive and businesslike, now added notes of excited curiosity.  
T + 109: 24: 13: "I'm going to get off LM." I tried the ground with my left foot - one, the other ... got on the moon!  
T + 109: 24: 25: “This one small step for man is a giant leap for mankind.”  
At this time in Moscow it was earlier morning on July 21. Domestic post-perestroika “democratic” publications about Apollon-11 thoughtlessly repeat a once-neglected lie: “Only the USSR and China did not show on television the American astronaut’s access to the moon.” So this is not true. They showed, only, of course, not at 05:56 in the morning, when ordinary Soviet people, going on buses and trains to work, still could not see it, but in the news, almost every hour and all day .. .  
And Neil, holding the handle with his right hand, turned to face the camera: “The surface is fine-grained, covered with dust ... I can freely throw it with my foot ... I see the marks of my boots ... It’s easy to move ... The engine didn’t make any crater, to the ground about 30 cm ... "  
Only at T + 109: 25: 43 did he finally “tear himself away” from his “mother's hand” and began to move on the moon on his feet.

Great desolation  
Armstrong raised his head as much as he could - and saw Aldrin in the LM window. Yes, in the shade - but I saw it! There was enough light scattered by the lunar malfunction. He calmly waited for the commander to finally engage in something serious. “Ok Buzz, are we ready to lower the camera?”  
All instruments for working on the moon should generally be located in the MESA compartment in the outer section of the PS. But in the first exit to the moon, a 70-mm camera and Teflon bags for the first soil samples were taken to the cab (suddenly MESA will not open!). Armstrong pulled the LEC * “conveyor” zero, and Buzz let go of the camera bag. Neil took it, took out the camera, fastened it on his chest and walked back one and a half to two meters to take a panorama of the landing site.  
Further, according to the plan, a small amount of lunar soil was collected - an “emergency sample” in case of an urgent launch from the moon. Neil pulled out of his pocket and collected a “scoop” (a net with a handle) and began to “scratch” the lunar surface in a rather awkward manner. Scooping a handful of dust and a few small pebbles, he took off the net, put it in a teflon bag and  
put it in his right pocket. He poked the ground with a pen (what a stubborn one he is!) And threw the net ring forward and up. Oh, and how long it flew ...  
The time has come to appear on the moon and the pilot of the Orla; Neil watched Buzz squeeze through the hatch. From halfway, the pilot suddenly moved back: "I will close the hatch a little ... The main thing is that he does not slam shut." The hatch could be opened from the outside, but Neil liked the joke.  
At T + 109: 42: 50, Buzz jumped onto a pillar support. The ability to describe what he saw for a moment left him. He saw a mess, and yet a certain “accuracy”, as he will later say, “the accuracy of stone and dust,” was striking. Oldrin could only say: “Beautiful appearance!” Armstrong agreed: “Not weak, really! Great view". Hearing this, Aldrin suddenly found the exact words. With quiet surprise in his voice, he said: “Great desolation!”  
The commander and the pilot finally stood opposite each other. No “cinema” hugs - after all, Neil has a camera on his chest. Instead, there was an incredibly sweet scene: two stooped big white “gorillas” bounced “welcome” for several seconds, standing opposite each other. Then Aldrin carefully examined the plain of the Sea of Tranquility. The surface was gently bent - Buzz saw that the Eagle and he and Armstrong were really standing on the sphere.  
They examined the module, unpacked MESA, removed the cover from the famous tablet (“We came in peace from the whole of humanity”), took pictures. Neil set the television camera at 17 m north-west, and Buzz pulled out and set the solar wind trap SWC at T + 110: 03.

Star-striped  
T + 110: 04. Neil went up to Buzz, they “whispered” about something, and for three minutes they were digging. They cheerfully departed from the Eagle with a long object in their hands, and after a few minutes a star-striped flag stood near the lunar module. Aldrin looked at the banner and felt that he was “bursting with pride for the Fatherland,” thinking about the thousands of people who did everything to bring them to the moon, and the millions who were watching them at that moment.  
Someone on Earth once asked Collins' son Michael the Younger: “Do you know that your dad will go down in history?” The boy, without hesitation, replied: "Yes." Then, embarrassed, he asked: “What is“ history ”?” July 20, when Neil and Buzz set the flag, Michael the Elder, following Columbia at their talks, said enthusiastically: “This is history!” Here is a clear explanation for the son - directly from the lunar orbit.  
It was a hot July evening in the United States, but there was an unpleasant silence in department stores and cafes — everyone watched the television screens. Everyone froze in their place, except for two figures who jumped and rode like snowmen alive in the background of the Eagle. The picture seemed ghostly, as if a part of her nature had been lost. The image from the moon was a window into a seemingly impossible dream ...

Mr President  
For the next three minutes, Armstrong was preparing equipment and tools, and Aldrin was not without pleasure performing “dancing on the moon” - he was racing between the “Eagle” and the camera, having tried, probably, all possible ways of movement - from a wide step to jumps kangaroo.  
T + 110: 16. MCC: “Neil and Buzz, the President of the United States, are now in his office and would like to say a few words to you.” Armstrong formally replied: “Count for honor.” Aldrin suddenly felt powerful heartbeats - he did not expect this.  
Astronauts stood in front of the TV camera and heard Richard Nixon's voice: “Hello, Neil, Buzz, I’m talking to you from the Oval Office in the White House, and this is the most historic telephone call ... At this priceless moment in the history of mankind, all people on Earth are united in their pride in what you have done, and united in prayers for your safe return to Earth. ”  
Armstrong's voice seemed somewhat moved, as if he almost cried: “Thank you, Mr. President. It is a great honor and privilege for us to be here, representing not only the United States, but also people of all nationalities ... ”  
“See you at the Hornet,” said Nixon. “I look forward to it, sir,” the only thing Aldrin said. Astronauts saluted the president after the war. And if Arms􏰀trong and Aldrin at that moment climbed back to Orel and took off to a meeting with Collins, their mission would have been completed. The flag is set, soil samples are taken, the exit from LM proved that future teams will be able to work on the moon. From that moment on, all that they did was “cream on the cake” for skeptics. People walked away from televisions, turning back to everyday affairs.  
  
Just an exit   
T + 110: 23. Neil pulled a special soil bucket from MESA to assemble a “weighted” set of soil samples. The bag for him was on the table at MESA, in the shade, and therefore Arm􏰀 Strong went back and forth for a long time: to scoop up the soil in the light, and back to dump it in the bag.  
Aldrin left the commander alone, and he took the camera and took the prints of his moon boots. Then he stepped back 20 steps to the side and shot panorama No. 2. One of her shots came from the Armstrong module working near the module - alas, from the back. The first person on the moon did not get the best image ...  
T + 110: 36. Aldrin returned to LM. Neil worked for MESA, sealing the “weight” sample. Buzz photographed the details of the LM design, described their condition and gave the camera to Armstrong - and he took a picture of Aldrin, who went around all the newspapers in the world. Then the camera again moved to Buzz, and he shot a third panorama from a point north of LM. Neil followed him, photographing the ground with a stereo camera.  
T + 110: 48. The astronauts began a joint LM tour, photographed the elements of the landing device, nozzle rocket engine, and the “nape” of the aircraft in profile. Raising the camera lens almost vertically, they “caught” a small blue hemisphere into the frame in the endless black sky of the Moon - the native planet Earth.  
T + 110: 53. Aldrin opened the LM cargo section and removed two boxes with instruments - a seismometer and a laser reflector. Without hesitation, he grabbed the instrument into each hand and carried them south of the LM in search of a more or less even place; Neil followed him with a camera. At 23 meters from LM, Buzz left the reflector to Neil, and he walked another 4 meters and began to lay out the seismometer.  
T + 111: 11. Aldrin returned to LM to hammer with a hammer two cores of “ground” fighter, and Armstrong alone made a march to the east to a 33-meter crater - the very one over which he had passed before landing. It was improvisation: Neil suddenly took and, without saying anything to the MCC, clumsily jumped to the side.

And before mouths were opened in Houston to ask, where is our Neil? - Armstrong was already at the crater and shot a panorama. It all took three minutes: to run away, to take off, to return.  
T + 111: 25. Sample collection completed; not everyone managed to do it, but there is no more time. Buzz climbed the ladder in LM and received from Neil two containers with samples (total 21.55 kg), photographed on the surface of a photocassette and a convoluted solar wind trap.  
Aldrin completely forgot that they should have left memorabilia on the surface: the Apollo􏰀1 emblem, Soviet medals in memory of Komarov and Gagarin, a disk with messages from earthly presidents and prime ministers, and an olive branch. I just had to throw a bag from the hatch ...  
T + 111: 38. It was time for Armstrong to return. About a minute Neil stood thoughtfully at the ladder, saying goodbye to the Moon. Then he thoroughly, on the ground wiped his feet on a dish-shaped support, as if about a carpet,and, abruptly pushing off, flew up to the first step of the ladder. Getting back turned out to be a bigger problem than getting out ...  


The smell of ash in the fireplace  
T + 111: 39: 13. The hatch is closed! Aldrin walked on the lunar surface for 1 hour 46 minutes, and Armstrong - 2 hours 13 minutes.  
With a loud and long-awaited noise, oxygen burst into the cockpit of the Eagle. Armstrong with a sarcastic grin recalled the terrible predictions that moon dust could catch fire when combined with oxygen. He and Oldrin were covered in dust from head to toe!  
After removing their helmets, they immediately smelled a pungent smell that reminded Armstrong of the wet ashes in the fireplace, and Oldrin - gunpowder after the shot. So smelled Luna ...  
Now Neil and Buzz could take pleasure in photographing each other's smiling bristly faces, the Sea of Calm, which looked so lonely behind the windows of the Eagle, a squinting flag, a television camera on a shaky tripod, a little further two quirks 􏰀 heavy scientific instrument, traces around, abandoned instrument ...  
The main reason why they flew was done; before the start from the moon, about 9 hours remained. After having lunch and answering the questions of patient patient selenologists, the astronauts tried to sleep. Armstrong grabbed to rest on the takeoff engine cover, but never fell asleep at all. Aldrin, curled up on the floor, dozed off snacks for several hours.  
The module did not have any special heating except the temperature of its own atmosphere, which theoretically should be maintained at + 18 ° С. But there were enough “coolers” in it, and the main “devourers” of heat were tanks with supercooled helium placed in its “occipital” part. By the time the astronauts went to sleep, it became cold inside. Moonlight flooded the cabin through transparent curtains; the dashboard sparkled with luminescent illumination of instruments and indicators. And the Sun was rising higher above the horizon and heating the LM of the outside, which, in turn, stimulated the howling of the cooling pumps ... When Hewson gave an impulse, they gladly started preparing for the launch.

Home!  
At T + 124: 20, Armstrong and Aldrin stood at the Eagle control panel. The first start from another world - in 2 minutes. 45 seconds before takeoff, Armstrong reminded Aldrin of the final steps before taking off from the moon: “For five seconds I press“ Shooting the stage ”and“ The engine is ready ”. And you click - “Start”. ”  
Buzz’s wife on Earth worried, perhaps more than anyone else, because she knew: her husband considered the start from the moon the most important moment of the flight. After all, never before have the aircraft engine been switched on after a day of cooling in Selenium and under conditions of its gravity.  
T + 124: 22: 01. A sudden muffled strike of pyrobolts between the PS and the aircraft - and an even push, similar to the start of a high-speed elevator. The gold shielding foil of the landing stage sprinkled to the sides, the flag seemed to have fallen into dust. "Eagle" went up!  
After 7 minutes and 15 seconds, the Eagle was again in orbit around the moon. An already familiar series of maneuvers - and Collins, in the eyepiece of the sextant, saw a small black dot: LM went up to him confidently and accurately along the highway, “as if he were driving along rails”. For Michael, it was the happiest sight for the entire flight - his team returned alive􏰀 healthy! - and the most beautiful:  
The earth rises behind you - it's fantastic! ” Here it is, this amazing picture: “Eagle”, the Moon and the small blue and white hemisphere in the distance.  
T + 128: 03: 00. Docking "Eagle" with "Colombia"! And after a few minutes in the tunnel, Armstrong's jubilant voice came: “Get ready to accept these million-dollar boxes!”  
... At T + 135: 23: 42, Colombia turned on its engine and left lunar orbit. July 24 at T + 195: 18: 35 the command module of Apollo 11 was splashed into the Pacific Ocean on Earth. Astronauts got out of a helicopter onto the deck of the “Hor􏰀net” aircraft carrier, like aliens from another world - dressed from head to toe in gray biologically insulating combat zones. Looking through their face masks, they waved to a crowd of sailors and high-ranking officials, and then went into an airtight trailer - to quarantine.  
At the Hornet, they were shown videos of the news, reverent awe of people gathered on television, witnesses of their first steps on the moon. And Oldrin, with an ironic smile, said to Armstronh: “Neil, but we missed all this!”


	67. Apollo 12:landing on target

goal  
Despite the triumph of Apollo 11, the prospects for the lunar program looked hopeless. There was not enough money, and she began to “slow down” even before the historical landing in the Sea of Tranquility. If in January 1969 the start of Apollo 12 was planned for September, then in April it was already 4-6 months after the 11th, that is, between November 1969 and January 1970.  
The crew of Apollo 12 was announced on April 10, 1969:  
➊ C. Conrad, R. Gordon, A. Bean;  
➋ D. Scott, A. Worden, J. Irwin.  
This mission was indicated in the plans as H: no longer an experimental landing, but a serious expedition with two surface exits and a full-fledged set of ALSEP * No1 instruments. Astronaut-geologist Harrison Schmitt  
and his colleagues managed to train Conrad and Bean: more than 200 hours of field work, including an expedition to the volcanoes of Hawaii.  
For the next flights, even more complex tasks were planned. An even more unpleasant surprise was the six-kilometer deviation of the landing point of the Eagle from the calculated one. Apollo Program Director Lieutenant General Phillips set the task: to ensure an accurate touchdown!  
The ballistics figured out how to quickly determine the parameters of the Apollon’s orbit changing in the “crooked” gravitational field of the Moon, and the ship’s specialists how to correct the landing task for these changes. Apollo 12 decided to send Storms to the Ocean with an additional task: to land no more than a kilometer from the automatic station Surveyor 3, which on April 20, 1967, landed south-east of Crater Lansberg.  
This idea belonged to Benjamin Milwitzky, former manager of the Surveyor program, and Jack Sevier of the planning group. Scientists tried to protest - the Ocean of Storms provided almost nothing new in comparison with the Sea of Tranquility, except for the chances of finding fragments from the Copernicus Crater - but they were confronted with the fact. (However, it was difficult to deal with them even when they demanded that a geologist be taken on the first lunar expedition, and Dick Slayton was angry: “There is little use for a dead scientist on the moon!”))  
The exact location of the Surveyor’s moon was determined by Even Whitaker, a member of the scientific “team” of the Surveyor project. The device sat inside a crater with a diameter of 200 m and therefore was able to capture only a small area north of it. And there was a “special omen” in the pictures: two almost grown together large stones. In “orbital photographs” they “resolved” no better than two pinplugs, but with the help of a microscope, Whitaker found them!  
The near Surveyor’s landing and the delivery of samples of its construction to Earth gave a unique (as it turned out, the only one in the 20th century) chance to study the details of the AMS operating on another planet. Then, in 1969, the developers were especially interested in the state of the station’s camera and optical elements, because they were just designing the first AMS to Mercury ...

To provide a sense of stability for the target,they had to plant LM in a large grouping of craters. Their slopes had a steepness of up to 20 °, and the critical slope for LM was 15 °. The simulator of plot No. 7 was put into the simulator, as close as possible to reality, and the astronauts “ironed” it in training for 400 hours. And this was not the only danger: the trajectory of entering the lunar orbit excluded the salvific “self-return”, as in the three previous ships.  
However, the study of the station "Surveyor􏰀3" was assigned not the first role. The main goals of Apollo 12 were:  
◆ development of precision landing techniques; ◆ installation of kit ALSEP No1;  
◆ collection of five “documented”  
soil samples;  
◆ lunar "traverse" with distance from  
LM per horizon (~ 300–500 m);  
◆ and only “for starters” - the old AMS, because otherwise the details removed from it  
would constrain the movement of astronauts.

”I'm going to a thunderstorm "  
The start to the Ocean of Storms took place in a gloomy and cold morning on November 14, 1969. There was heavy rain and it was simply impossible to fly in such weather, but I had to close my eyes to the rule: President Richard Nixon himself came to launch with 3000 (!) honored guests.  
At the 9th second, the rocket entered a dense layer of clouds. And after 36.5 seconds after the start, lightning struck her.  
Only Commander Pete Conrad saw the flash: “Damn, what was that?” The alarm was heard by all three. A strong discharge of 80,000 amperes went down the ionized track of the rocket. Induced currents caused the shutdown of the fuel cells of the ship, and the Apollo power supply panel was lit up with red and yellow alarm indicators. On the screens of the MCC some crazy numbers appeared - telemetry did not go on board.  
At the 52nd second, “Saturn􏰀5” “caught” the second lightning *. “So ... OK, we just lost the gyro platform, guys. I don’t know what happened - everything turned off ... ”Conrad transmitted at the 61st second and read out all the alarms with one spirit.  
Fortunately, the ship still had power from the landing batteries, and it was simply a miracle that electric discharges did not interfere with the operation of the carrier control system. Saturn 5 was steadily following a given trajectory, radio communication was maintained, and instead of turning on the SAS, Houston and the crew began to “revive” the ship that almost “fell into a sleep”.  
Conrad was able to restore telemetry at the prompt of the MCC, and right after the separation of the 1st stage, LM pilot Alan Bin switched on the fuel cells again. By the end of the sixth minute of the flight, Conrad, Bean and the command module pilot Richard Gordon were able to restart all systems except the navigation one. The mission was saved, and the astronaut laughed: “This was a training session!” Houston breathed a sigh of relief, making sure what kind of "iron" guys he sent to the moon.  
The “naval” crew of the Apollo 12 was indeed a cool team — apparently the most balanced of all the lunar expeditions. Conrad, at 39, had 6,500 flying hours as a pilot, test pilot and astronaut, and 2,500 hours of simulators. Gordon and Bean were his students at the Test Pilot School. Gordon had already flown with the commander on Gemini􏰀 11, and the newcomer Bean had an enviable fearlessness in critical situations and a rare determination in business.  
The gyro platform was able to put on the stars already in orbit. It was necessary to decide what to do next, and the head of the Directorate of Field Management Christopher Kraft himself approached John Aaron, the duty operator of the power supply, communication, and LSS systems. “So, a young man,” he said, “you have an hour and a half to find out whether this ship can be sent to the moon or not.”  
The starting shift of Jerry Griffin “drove” the test of the most complex operation - entry into the near-moon orbit. Everything worked. They did not know one thing - the discharges could trigger the pyro means of the parachute system of the command module, and if so, then the astronauts will inevitably die when they return to Earth, like Vladimir Komarov in 1967. Kraft, Slayton, McDivitt and the new Apollo Chef Rocco Petrone decided: nothing can be done with the parachute system, and if so, let Conrad and Bean get a chance to work on the Moon.  
The start to the moon, the flight and access to the orbit passed according to the schedule. The undocking in the lunar orbit of CSM Yankee Clipper with LM Intrepid went perfectly. Gordon, saying goodbye to friends going to the moon, openly “walked” through the designers of the lunar module: “Oh! Failed to make LM for three ... "  
At T + 110: 20: 38, at an altitude of about 15 km, the Undaunted began braking.


End file.
